The Heart is a Machine
by K'sChoiceofAFI
Summary: AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former blade runner, is called back into the force when a group of androids called replicants crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way android weasels her way into Quinn's life, Quinn begins to question what it really means to be human.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

**A/N:** Hey! Can't seem to write one-shots anymore; I'm stuck in chapter fic mode, which doesn't bode well for my sanity, but that's another story. I'm here with a new one! And there's probably a lot to explain, so let's get to it.

Several months ago I watched _Blade_ _Runner_ in a film class and fell in nerd love with it. And it occurred to me about two months ago that it would be cool to read it in a Faberry fic. So I wrote it/am writing it. This is a future AU fic. Quinn is twenty-one. We're dealing with robots, cliché love and all that good stuff. It's a fast paced movie, and this fic will probably be just as fast paced. Any questions, please ask. Most will be answered as the fic progresses, though. :)

Things to note:

Replicant: the name for androids.

Skin-job: a derogatory term for replicants.

* * *

Twenty-one was supposed to be a milestone, an age of reckless abandon once alcohol drinking became _legal_. It was an age of just old enough without being old at all. But for Quinn Fabray, as she turned twenty-one in November, 2019, it was nothing but a number, really.

"Come on, Q, hurry up so we can get out of the rain!" Her best friend, Puck, laughed. "You know how much you hate storms!"

Just then, a crackle of thunder shook the heavens violently and Quinn, walking on a very busy sidewalk, halted, a trickle of dread shooting down her spine as she tried to look inconspicuous as she began to walk a little faster. "Thanks, Puck," she grumbled as she walked faster to catch up with him. Thunderstorms made her uneasy, always had since she was a child and she had carried the mild fear into her adulthood much to her embarrassment.

"Excuse you," Quinn grumbled bitingly toward a woman who bumped into her. "Freak." She winded through the people with her umbrella held securely in her grip to keep her freshly curled hair from becoming rain soaked. Her heels, sensible wedges that could sustain her ankles while walking around all day squished against rapidly forming puddles in grooves on the sidewalk.

She felt a warm hand settle in her unoccupied one and looked over to find Puck walking beside her. The only sensible part of his outfit was a sweater to fight off the chilled night air. Otherwise, he was in a pair of shorts without an umbrella to protect his slicked back mohawk as they winded down the sidewalk.

The door to the restaurant was already being opened by a tall, slender woman as Quinn neared it and she sped up even more, catching it with a grateful smile in her direction. Puck walked up a moment later to hold the door, and, one foot poised as a needless, habitual stopper in front of the door, Quinn wrung out her umbrella before closing it and walking inside. For a Thursday evening the restaurant wasn't very crowded and her tense shoulders drooped somewhat at the possibility of being served quickly.

It was a quiet atmosphere with dimmed lights, the perfect place for the non-eventful birthday dinner Quinn had been hoping for. She caught a waitress's eye, a short brunette, and smiled while pointing to a nearby table in question. The waitress nodded with a grin, and Quinn began to take off her coat as she and Puck walked toward a nearby booth.

"Okay, I don't know what the fuck to order here, Q," Puck admitted as he settled into the booth. There were already menus there and he grabbed one, opening it with a confused frown. "I can't even pronounce half this stuff."

"American," Quinn scoffed with a teasing smile. "Look, I'm ordering the Kapow chicken—you can get that if you'd like."

"Spicy?" he asked.

Her head tilted. "If done correctly."

Puck closed his menu with finality. "That's what I want." He flagged down the same waitress they had seen earlier and they ordered quickly. Once she was gone, Puck waggled his eyebrows at Quinn across the booth. "Going out drinking tonight?"

Quinn settled further into the booth with a sigh. "I don't know, Puck. I kind of don't feel up to it."

Puck frowned. "Come on, Q. You've been a wet blanket for the last few months. What's gotten into you?"

She glanced out the window to the rivulets of rain streaking down in various patterns on the other side. "I don't know," she said quietly.

"I think you miss being a blade runner."

Quinn laughed once, hard, and turned to Puck. "I _hated_ that job."

"It gave you a rush, though."

"Risking my life by retiring androids does not give me a rush, no."

He shrugged. "Gives me one."

Quinn eyed him for a long moment. "How's it been lately? You don't talk about it much."

"Nothing's going on," Puck admitted. "I just sit at my desk all day collecting checks while we wait for something interesting to happen, like one of those skin-jobs getting away from Schuester Corp and onto the streets."

Quinn hummed noncommittally at his answer. She drew the straw in her glass nearer and took a sip. Extra money in her pocket would have been great right now.

The door to the restaurant chimed, and Quinn's eyes cut over to the man standing in the doorway. Then they rolled. Sam Evans, still wearing his scrubs, walked into the restaurant.

Puck turned around as the sight of annoyance of Quinn's face. His own face split into a grin. "Hey, buddy, over here!"

Sam caught sight of Puck and waved back, making his way over. He was the youngest intern at Lima Hospital, a young man with a bright, promising future. He, Quinn, and Puck all grew up together. They had a long tangled history that included Quinn rebelling against her parents and dating Puck for a short, meaningless stint when she was sixteen because her parents had kept pushing for her to date the young blonde boy with a promising future. Sam had had a crush on her ever since, though Quinn suspected it had less to do with her and more to do with the fact that Puck had got to sleep with her and he didn't. It was a past that they all decided to not mention when all three of them were together, but frequently talked about when one-on-one situations presented themselves.

"Hey, Q," Sam greeted with a wide grin as he saddled up to the table. "Happy birthday."

He brought his hand from behind his back to produce a bouquet of roses that Quinn smiled indulgently at. "Thanks, Sam."

Puck smirked at the two of them in amusement, hiding it behind a sip of his Pepsi.

"Are either of you guys gonna give a guy a seat?" Sam asked, looking between the two of them. Puck subtly slid toward the end of his booth. Quinn caught the movement with a glare and sat the flowers down beside her in the seat.

"I wouldn't want to squash these flowers," she explained. "It's probably best if you sit beside Puck."

Sam and Puck looked at each other for a long moment, wondering how they were going to be able to fit their shoulders into a single booth. Finally, Puck sighed and stood up. "You've got inside, dude."

"Fine," Sam grumbled as he slid into the booth, Puck following him. "Did you guys order already?"

Quinn nodded. "Do you want me to get the waitress so you can order?"

Sam waved it off. "Just saw my first triple bypass today." He shuddered. "It just does something to a person. I don't have much of an appetite."

"Softy," Puck scoffed.

"_You_ try watching that and having to take extensive mental notes, and see if you can eat afterward."

"This is _Puck_ we're talking about," Quinn cut in. "This is the guy who fell shin first on a nail when we were kids and only cried because going to the hospital meant he wouldn't be home when the ice cream truck came around."

"He didn't come around every day!" Puck defended with a laugh. "I wasn't sure when I would see him again."

Sam made an incredulous face, and slid his eyes from Puck to Quinn. "So, Q, been well?"

Quinn shot him a look. "I work the same dead end job everyday—what's not to be well about?"

"Oh, come on, Quinn, it can't be that bad," Sam cajoled.

"No, of course not," Quinn bit out sarcastically. "I just sit around every day answering calls from women who have cats stuck in trees or dead beat boyfriends who won't pay child support, or—"

"How're your ribs doing, by the way?" Sam asked. About two weeks ago Quinn had come in with bruised ribs from doing just what she had described, chasing a man down who hadn't paid child support.

Since resigning from a blade runner, a law enforcement agent who specialized in retiring replicants, Quinn had since fallen down the food chain of importance at work. She had gone from running down androids to running down men who refused to pay child support. Two weeks ago she had chased a man down three blocks and into an alleyway. She had been rapidly gaining on him when out of nowhere he threw a trashcan into her path. She had fallen over it and landed harshly on her side.

He had gotten away.

And that was when Quinn had realized that her life had bottomed out. She was in a rut at age twenty-one, and had nothing that could really get her out of it.

"Should have stayed a blade runner," Puck sing-songed.

"Bite me," Quinn shot back.

Puck shrugged and leaned back in his seat to look over at Sam. "Are we gonna have to drag this chick with us to the club tonight, or what?"

Sam grinned. "She's legal now, so she won't have to hold the bartender at gunpoint until he forgets her age and hands her a shot anymore."

Quinn's lips quirked at his comment as old memories came to mind. "I wasn't _that_ bad."

"You nearly got as us all banned that night!" Sam laughed.

"Umm, excuse me, Ms. Fabray?"

All three of them looked up to the waitress in front of them. Quinn's eyes briefly drifted to the cops standing by the doorway before she looked over at the waitress again. It was the same waitress who greeted them with a smile when they stepped in, looking worried now. Quinn plastered on a fake smile. "How may I help you?"

"Those men over there are looking for you," she said, gesturing to the cops by the doorway.

"Holy shit," Puck whispered.

"And you as well, Mr. Puckerman."

He straightened in his seat to eye the men behind him by the door. He swiveled back around to face Quinn. "Those are my guys, Q. No idea what they're doing here, though."

"I'm not going with them," Quinn declared flatly.

"It's probably best if we do. Don't want to get arrested on your birthday, do you?"

It would have probably been the most exciting thing to happen to her in a while, actually.

"C'mon, Q. Let's just go see what they want." Puck slid out of the booth. "You go home, Sam. They don't seem to want you, and there's no reason for you to have to go downtown."

Sam slid out of the booth with a sigh. He held is hand out to Quinn, who ignored it as she stood up. "Call me when you get home so I can know you're okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Quinn replied noncommittally as she stared at the cops. There were three of them, burly men who stood straight with guns in their holsters that Quinn didn't doubt they knew how to use well. If they were Sue's men, then they knew how to aim and shoot. "Slip out through the kitchen," was the last thing she said to him as she walked in the opposite direction towards the men who were looking for her.

She came to a stop directly in front of them with belligerent posture as Puck stood at her side. "I heard you wanted to see me," she said quietly, eyes darting to all three of them.

They smiled.

* * *

"I have a proposition for you."

"No."

Sue Sylvester, Quinn's former boss, chuckled heartily as she sat at her desk, feet propped up on important documents like they meant nothing. "Come on, Q, hear me out."

"_No_," Quinn reiterated. "You had your men _arrest_ me from my birthday dinner with friends to bring me down here because you want me to work for you? _No_. You've gone drunk on power and you think you can boss everyone around, but you're not going to do it to me."

Sue's lips twisted as she stared at her desk. She removed her feet and scooted closer to the desk to clasp her hands on it and look at Quinn with narrowed eyes. "I'll increase your pay. You'll make more here with us in a week than you'll make in a month as a run of the mill cop."

"No."

Sue sighed. "I'll throw in enough to pay for those acting classes you want."

Quinn opened her mouth, but paused, closing it again as she mulled over Sue's deal.

"Come on," Sue goaded. "That's what you've been saving up your money for, right? The chance to go to an acting school? I can make it happen, Q. Just hear me out."

Quinn folded her arms tightly across her chest as she glared across the desk at Sue. "You have two minutes."

"I'll need five," Sue said nonchalantly. She steepled her hands together over a stack of papers, took one look at it, and glanced up at Quinn again with sobering eyes. "Two weeks ago a spaceship crash landed on Earth. Twenty-three humans were killed by five replicants who are now on the loose."

"Two _weeks_ ago?" Quinn hissed incredulously. "This happened two weeks ago and you're just handling it _now_?"

"That's because it's just been brought to my attention now. An hour ago, to be exact. Schuester Corp had been trying to keep this under wraps and handle it themselves. Problem is they don't even know where their own replicants are."

"Don't they keep tracking devices on those skin-jobs?" Quinn spat.

Sue shook her head. "Apparently not. Now look, I'm offering you extra pay and a team to work with if you can hunt these androids down and retire them _quietly_. I don't want the public to know about this, Q. You know how nervous they've gotten about replicants lately."

"And with good reason," Quinn insisted. "You remember what a hot mess it was two years ago when Schuester tried to give those replicants emotions."

It had been a disaster. The once docile androids had turned into disobedient terrors who often threatened the lives of their owners. They had started being reported one by one to the blade runner precinct until Schuester Corp was shut down. Recently, the replicants had been used in outer space to aid technicians in their plans to create life sustainable atmospheres on other planets. Quinn had heard nothing out of the occasional act up for months. But this was simply horrific. Twenty-three dead, and the murderers were all over Lima, Ohio and could truthfully be anywhere by now. It had been two weeks, after all.

"The only good thing is that they're not like their predecessors," Sue said. "These are right back to the basics. They may look like us, act like us, but when it comes to this—" Sue gestured toward her heart. "Nothing but a light show. You'll be able to spot them."

Slowly, Quinn shook her head back and forth. "I can't do this," she declared with finality. "No, I can't. I said the very last time that I quit. Do you know how dangerous this job is, Sue? Do you even care?" Quinn quickly stood from her seat and grabbed her coat. "You probably don't because _you_ aren't going to be the one fighting something three times as strong and fast as you are. I won't do this."

Quinn walked over to the door, and grabbed the handle to walk out.

"Okay," Sue chirped. "Then I'll just haul your father in for extortion. Put him away for probably five to ten years considering he's been doing it for most of his career."

Quinn stopped dead in her tracks. Her shoulders rose with tension as she spun around to face Sue. "You wouldn't _dare_."

Sue smiled roguishly. "I'll see you Monday."

* * *

After leaving a rather colorful and lengthy voicemail on her father's answering machine last night, Quinn had reported to work the next day. Nearly everyone who worked there several months ago when she was still a blade runner was there now. Everyone was in one giant room, several desks strewn about with loud ringing phones. Mrs. Jackson still worked in the same desk towards the right. Luke still sat at the edge of his desk taking personal calls as he had when Quinn had been working there. She did _not_ miss this job by any stretch of the imagination. The clacking of her heels became muffled as she continued walking, stepping onto carpeted floors.

"Yo, Q!"

Quinn turned to find her best friend, Noah Puckerman, heading towards her. He looked like an excited puppy, and Quinn could practically see big floppy ears on his head as he hurried towards her and wrapped her in a bear hug. "Didn't think you'd show," he whispered in her ear.

"I didn't have much choice," was Quinn's wry retort. She was cursing her father from here to Bermuda for her having to work this job. The only good thing to come out of this was literally the double pay she would be receiving considering hunting androids was an unpredictable and risky line of work. They were made to be non-violent beings, but living in a violent world often taught them new tricks.

Puck pulled back to rake his eyes appreciatively down her body. "Looking good, Q."

"Get off it, Puck."

"_Again_? Are you fucking _serious_?"

Both Puck and Quinn turned to the man screaming on the phone in the corner of the office. He was a short, balding man who Quinn thought was too old to be working a job that could overly excite him like this.

"_Fuck_!" the man declared, glasses falling down the bridge of his nose. He lifted them higher with a shaky finger and looked up to find the office mostly silent save for about three ringing phones. Everyone's attention was on him, and he murmured a brusque goodbye, face grim as he hung up the phone. He heaved a deep sigh. "One of our EPR test administrators was killed by one of those damn skin-jobs," he growled.

It was like a hush fell over the room; even the phones had stopped ringing. Quinn watched critically as the old man seemed to crumple back into his seat. He brought a hand to his mouth as his entire frame shuddered.

Blinking, Quinn looked around as people slowly went back to their desks, the room solemn and silent. She jumped when Puck placed a hand on her shoulder and looked up at him. His lips were twisted and he bit his bottom one before speaking. "This is the first time any of them have actually killed anyone _on_ _Earth_. Things are a lot closer to home now."

Quinn nodded, feeling rattled as the severity of the situation began to weigh down on her.

One of the doors in the back of the room dramatically swung open and Quinn turned around as her former boss turned current came storming out of the office. She took one look at Quinn and pointed at her then hooked her thumb over her shoulder. "You—in my office."

Everyone in the room looked at Quinn as she walked forward into Sue's office, Puck following.

He closed the door behind them, and Quinn's gaze washed over the new person in the room.

"Santana—Quinn. Quinn—Santana," Sue introduced with disinterest. "Now that we've all caught up, we can't talk business." She sat down at her seat around the desk and looked up at Quinn, brow furrowing in confusion. "Have a seat," she cried incredulously.

Quinn walked over toward the seat beside Santana and sat down, giving her a small smile.

"So, you're the Q who used to work around here," Santana prompted. Her eyes raked down Quinn's body for a moment. "Cute," she concluded. "I see you're still in shape. Good. Just don't get in my way."

"Don't get in mine," Quinn instantly retorted.

"Great, we're all out of each other's way," Sue concluded as Puck sat down on the other side of Quinn. "We need to get down to business." She picked up a blue folder in front of her and opened it. There was a stack of papers inside and Quinn leaned forward in interest as Sue turned them around to face the three of them.

"Five, right?" Quinn asked as Sue spread the five sheets of papers out.

"Five," Sue confirmed. "Five replicants that we need to retire. As you know they have superior strength and speed, so tread lightly." Her expression was grave as she eyed all of them. "We already have one human dead on Earth, twenty-six total now. I don't need my operatives dying, too."

They all remained silent, glancing at the names on each paper to acquaint themselves with the replicants they would have to be tracking down in the streets later. It was a pain that replicants were androids, looking so much like humans that finding them was needle-in-a-haystack difficult.

Sue stood up, bracing one hand on the desk and pointing at the paper in front of Puck with the other. "Finn Hudson," she said.

Puck snorted. "They have last names now?"

"Schuester had ordered so many built over time that they needed first and last names as a way of classification." They all focused back on the paper and the the descriptions that were listed below Finn's name. "Combat model—and freaking huge from what I've heard from our surveillance."

"I hate surveillance," Puck grumbled. "They don't do anything but…_look_."

"Makes you wanna kick 'em in the lens cap, if you know what I mean," Santana griped, and Quinn cracked a small smile. She liked a fellow smart ass.

"_Anyway_," Sue continued, "just watch out for this one. He's bigger than all of you." She shot Puck a lingering look, then turned to the next sheet of paper.

"Wait, was that a joke about my size?" Puck asked. "Like, my dick size? 'Cause I can whip this bad boy out right now and—"

"_No_," Quinn cut in. "Absolutely not. Sue, continue please."

Puck deflated in his seat to glare at Quinn with squinted eyes. "Like you don't know," he grumbled, and Quinn rolled her eyes to fight back a blush.

"Hold up, sexing in the workplace is cool?" Santana asked, looking at all three of them "I'd likes to get my fraternizing on."

"You will not be fraternizing, boobs of steel; you'll be too busy hoping to live through this catastrophe."

Santana waved the insult off. "Only _one_ person on Earth has died so far. I wouldn't call it a catastrophe yet."

"I would," Quinn said quietly. She looked over towards Santana. "They're strong. Stronger than us, and if they've started killing then we don't really stand a chance unless we isolate them and retire them one by one, which would be difficult because they travel toge—"

Sue snapped her finger and pointed in Quinn's face. "Beautiful thought, Q. Hold it like a butterfly so it doesn't get away." Her lips curved into a lopsided smirk. "I knew I brought you back for a reason. It's like we share the same brain—Siamese twins."

"Kinda gross," Quinn muttered.

"As I was saying—" She pointed to the second paper. "Mercedes Jones—loader for nuclear fission."

"That doesn't sound too good," Puck said.

"Just make sure when you trap her, she isn't near chemicals," Sue muttered as she moved on to the third paper. "Blaine Anderson—pleasure model, for sex."

Quinn's face twisted as she stared down at the colorful descriptions of all he could do. "Oh, eww."

"They couldn't have gotten anyone hotter?" Santana wondered with a frown as she read through his description and nearly gagged at 'bushy eyebrows'.

"Android building supplies were obviously at an all-time low," Sue concluded with a nod. She placed her finger on the fourth sheet of paper. "Mike Chang—entertainment. Says here he was a good dancer."

"_Entertainment_?" Puck spat. "See—this is the shit I'm talking about. They build all of these fucking androids and expect _us_ to clean up the mess when one, two, or _all_ of them go crazy!"

"This really is stupid," Quinn agreed as her eyes scanned over all the papers. Of them all, Finn seemed to be the biggest, Blaine the smallest and possibly the easiest to take down since his only function was literally sex.

"Luckily the government has stepped in and stopped production," Sue said. "After this it'll finally be over."

"If we're alive," Santana grumbled.

"Oh, so you're taking this seriously now?" Quinn couldn't help but inquire in sarcasm.

Santana shrugged a shoulder, crossing her arms over her chest. "I got a girl. Won't be of use to her if I'm dead, so…"

Quinn's lips parted in muted shock at the admission. She bit her lip and turned back to Sue who was on the fifth sheet of paper. "Sebastian Smythe who specializes in communication. From what I've heard he's a sweet talker, so be careful."

"Sounds cute," Santana commented.

Quinn rolled her eyes. "So, where do we go from here?"

"You and you," Sue began, pointing to Puck and Santana. "I want you to work closely with surveillance today. Gather what information you can about the replicants and report it back to me." Her eyes then focused heavily on Quinn. "And you, conjoined twin, will be going to Schuester's Corporation. Dr. Berry will be waiting for you."

Quinn's face turned ashen as her lips curled back in disdain. "Why do _I _have to be the one do talk to him?"

"Because of your impeccable charm," Sue deadpanneed.

* * *

"Q? Hey, Q!"

Quinn turned around at the exit of the precinct to find Santana jogging towards her.

She came to a full stop in front of Quinn, panting lightly. "You don't mind if I call you, Q, do you?"

"Actually—"

"Great!" Santana grinned deviously at the grim expression on Quinn's face. "Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch. I mean, I'm trusting you with my life; the least you could do is buy a girl some breadsticks."

Quinn shifted her weight to her other foot, rolling her eyes in exasperation. But she wasn't too keen on going to Mr. Schuester's Corporation either, and stalling with lunch at Breadstix wasn't too bad of an alternative. "Sure. I'll drive."

"And pay," Santana added.

* * *

"So, why did you get into blade running anyway?" Santana asked around a mouth full of breadsticks. Quinn was quickly learning that Santana was crude and lacking in the manner department, but she was starting to like her anyway. "A chick like you just _screams_ housewife, teacher, or real estate agent."

Quinn chuckled at how apt the description was as she drew her straw nearer for a sip of her ginger ale. "I was looking for a job," Quinn said simply. "And Puck—the guy we're working with?" Santana nodded. "He's my best friend. He was already a blade runner and told me they were paying pretty well, and that I could use the money for my acting classes."

Santana's eyebrow shot up. "So, are you and muscles-in-Baby-Gap-shirt fucking?"

"I—no," Quinn said in hesitation. She didn't really know how to answer the question, because yes, she and Puck had slept together once in high school, but it wasn't good and ancient history between them now. History that she didn't want to share with someone she just met. "You can 'get your fraternizing on' with him if you want."

Santana looked affronted at having her own words thrown back in her face. "I gots a girl, all right?"

"So I hear," Quinn remarked dryly. "What's her name?" she then asked, turning the tables.

"Brittany," Santana answered. "My super-hot dancing, motor cross loving girlfriend." She leveled Quinn with a glare. "Keep your hands off."

Quinn laughed heartily despite the threat. "I haven't even _seen_ her."

Santana cracked a small smile at seeing an echoing one on Quinn's face. "So…" Santana began. "Got a boyfriend?"

Quinn instantly thought of Sam Evans vying for her attention, which just really made her laugh.

Santana's eyebrow shot up in suspicion of the private joke she wasn't privy to.

"I don't have one, no," Quinn answered after a moment.

Santana's expression was very much the same when she prompted, "Girlfriend?"

Once.

Her senior year in high school Quinn had gone through a bad streak, chopping all her hair off and hanging out with a group of girls who spent their days smoking and drinking. Quinn had gotten involved with the valedictorian, a smart girl with a promising future. Their romance ended when neither of them wanted to come out to their parents for various reasons that all boiled down to the same thing: they didn't want their parents' opinions about them to change, especially the valedictorian who ended up attending an Ivy League university.

Having only been with two people in her life, one male and one female, at age twenty-one, Quinn really couldn't pinpoint her sexuality and didn't seem to care to. All she knew at this point was that she wasn't interested in Sam Evans.

"I'm single," Quinn answered simply.

"Weird. You're hot," Santana commented with a shrug.

Quinn chuckled quietly. "Gee, thanks."

* * *

"I'm here to see Dr. Berry," Quinn declared flatly once she had made it past the different levels of security of the Schuester Corporation. It was heavily guarded day and night because over the years Mr. Schuester had acquired many enemies over his production of androids. Quinn being one of them, but she didn't have the energy to be upset enough with the guy to want to kill him.

The woman behind the desk was Shelby Corcoran, if her nametag was anything to by. She seemed no nonsense with a strong jaw and sharp eyes that ran over whatever dataset she was glancing over on her computer behind the desk. "Ms. Fabray, you don't seem to have an appointment."

"Detective Fabray," Quinn corrected with a flash of her badge. Shelby's eyes widened slightly, and Quinn stifled a smug smirk at the sight of it.

"Dr. Berry is busy."

"Then send me upstairs. I'll wait."

"I'm afraid I can't—"

"Listen," Quinn cut in sharply. She was starting to hate this woman already. "You can either send me through now, or I can call for back up, wait until they get here, then we can all storm right upstairs to talk to LeRoy ourselves."

Shelby looked wholly put out by the idea as the mild worry creasing her face smoothed over into impassivity. "There is no need for all of that, detective Fabray."

Quinn tilted her head, gesturing to the elevator to her left. "Then I'm free to go, aren't I, Ms. Corcoran?"

Shelby leveled her with a hard stare for a long moment. When it was clear Quinn wasn't going to be deterred, she sighed. "Yes. You can go."

Quinn flashed a false smile. "Lovely."

She turned from the desk and walked toward the elevator, pressing the up button and stepping aside. It dinged open with no one inside and Quinn stepped in, pressing the appropriate floor number and sinking back against the railing in the back of the elevator.

Inhaling a deep breath, Quinn rolled her shoulders back, trying to reacquaint herself with this line of work. Though it had only been months, she was still on edge about the possibility of working with androids again. They weren't the most stable despite what Schuester Corporation promised in their commercials. When faced with termination the androids became almost primal in their need to defend themselves. Though this was the first time any of them had ever killed anyone.

They were largely a group of androids that were supposed to be working in outer space with space technicians who were trying to make the moon and neighboring planets life sustainable. The androids came in different kinds to provide different functions. But every once in a while one or two would escape Schuester Corporation and when that happened, blade runners were sent out to track them down and retire them. This was the first time a fleet of androids had overpowered an entire spaceship full of people, killing them, and fleeing the spaceship once it landed on Earth. They had been on Earth just over two weeks, thus far only one person had been killed, leading Quinn to wonder what exactly the replicants were up to.

The elevator came to a smooth stop and opened silently. Quinn stepped out, looking around to reacquaint herself with the hallway as she walked toward the only room on the floor. The doors were slightly ajar, and she opened them further, taking a cautious step inside. Sensory lights began to flicker on one by one with each step Quinn took into the massive room until every light was lit. There was only a single table in the room full of chairs. Quinn's grip around her briefcase tightened as she looked over her shoulder at the sound of wings flapping.

An owl rested atop its perch in the corner. It took one look at Quinn, then turned away, eyes flashing as the evening light hit it. Quinn's lips pulled back into a sneer at the sight of it. "Everything's artificial in this place, even down to the pets," she muttered.

She shook off the odd feeling of dread shooting down her spine and walked further into the room, walking around the table and taking a seat to keep the door and the rest of the room in her line of sight. Her briefcase landed with a thud against the polished wooden table.

The door creaked and sharp hazel eyes looked up as LeRoy walked into the room, tall and slender in a white lab coat. A second pair of feet could be heard and Quinn's eyes squinted at the sight of a much shorter woman in a pair of clacking heels walking just behind him.

She was slim yet stout, dark brown hair curled into waves that bounced down her shoulders with every step she took. Her bangs swept down just above her eyes, making her look young in a way that made Quinn question her age as her youthful look conflicted with the pair of heels she wore. She had on a long sleeve white button up with an argyle sweater vest over it that Quinn had the urge to vomit on as the girl came closer. Her skirt was scandalously short and not at all professional enough for this meeting.

"Good evening, detective Fabray," LeRoy greeted jovially. He wore a grin on his face that the young woman matched as she, too, walked closer. They both stood behind the chair across from Quinn, smiling down at her. "It's certainly been a while. I thought you had quit."

Quinn's eyes darted to the woman at his side, giving her a once over before turning back to LeRoy. "Well, you know, when androids decide to show their asses I clean it up. Simple."

LeRoy's smile wavered a bit as he regarded her. "I always wished the public went a little softer on the replicants. After all, they only learn what is taught to them." He looked over to the young woman by his side and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Have you met Rachel?" he asked Quinn.

With a shy smile, Rachel stepped forward and extended her hand across the table. "I'm Rachel Berry." Quinn's face fell flat as Rachel softly continued. "It's a pleasure to meet you, detective Fabray."

Quinn's jaw clenched as she looked from Rachel to LeRoy. "Berry?"

Rachel grinned proudly as she looked up at LeRoy. "He's my father."

Quinn had known LeRoy for over a year while working as a blade runner and not once had he mentioned having a child. Dazed, her hand unwound from a fist to shake Rachel's without enthusiasm. "Hi."

"She's interning here for a few months to see if she likes it," LeRoy supplied as he took in Quinn's puzzled expression.

"I see," Quinn said quietly. She felt wholly uncomfortable and grabbed her briefcase, wanting to get this over as soon as possible. It clicked open once unlocked and Quinn spun it around to face Leroy. "The reason I'm here is because our EPR test has been improved upon and I wanted to test the latest on a replicant that you may have lying around."

Rachel's brow furrowed. "EPR?"

"Emotional and physiological response test, sweetheart," LeRoy answered sweetly. He straightened his tie absentmindedly as he said, "I'd be more than happy to help you out, Quinn." His head tilted, a devious smile lighting his face. "Perhaps you should try it on Rachel first."

Quinn lifted an eyebrow. "I thought you said she was your daughter and, therefore, human. I need a replicant."

"What better way to know that your test truly works than to test a human?" he challenged. "You wouldn't want to overlook such a crucial step and end up mistakenly retiring a…human, do you?"

The last thing Quinn wanted on her conscious was killing a human in her overzealous need to rid the world of replicants. Back stiff, she motioned for Rachel to sit down as she arranged the briefcase directly in front of her.

Rachel hesitantly sat down in the seat, her fingers gripping the seat of the chair as she stared at Quinn. "This isn't going to hurt, is it?"

"Not if you're human," Quinn replied flippantly. She looked up to find Rachel wide-eyed and staring distrustfully at the device in front of her. Quinn rolled her eyes. "It's just a series of questions. I'll monitor your eye dilation and visible physiological responses. And when we're finished you'll be free to go. Maybe."

Releasing a deep breath, Rachel nodded and settled back in her seat. "Okay. I'm ready."

A bright, thin ray of light flashed directly in her left eye and Rachel squinted before her pupil adjusted to the change.

"What's your full name?" Quinn asked brusquely.

"Rachel Barbra Berry," Rachel immediately responded with.

Quinn looked over at her for a long moment, before continuing. "What's today's date?"

"November 8, 2019."

"Age."

"Twenty."

That made Quinn pause. Her gaze washed over Rachel's face with a critical frown. "You don't look it."

Rachel grinned. "I've always looked twelve," she joked. "It's because I'm tiny. But I can assure you, detective Fabray, I'm twenty."

"Okay." She reached forward into the mesh pocket of the briefcase to grab a stack of papers.

"Are we done?" Rachel asked hopefully.

"No." Quinn glanced over the questions on the paper. There were hundreds of questions, though most replicants didn't make it past thirty. So far Rachel was showing signs of being human, but a niggling thought in the back of Quinn's mind kept her asking questions. But Sue had said that only five replicants existed, so it was possible Rachel would check out as human. She looked up to watch the way Rachel fidgeted in her seat into a new position. "You're watching TV and suddenly realize there's a wasp on your arm," Quinn prompted. "What would you do?"

It was a test designed to weed out typical human reactions from the more peculiar ones that replicants had come up with in the past. A typical response would be to swat the wasp away, kill it, even hop up and scream. An atypical response that Quinn had come across in the past? Shooting it.

Rachel's eyes widened at the question in some semblance of earnestly as she demurely replied, "I'd gently swat it away without harming it."

Quinn stared at her for a long moment, her mind leaning towards Rachel being human as she took in her round eyes and sincere demeanor. A replicant couldn't feel and the replicants Quinn had run into in the past couldn't even begin to mimic emotions correctly the way Rachel was.

Several questions later had Quinn sucking her teeth and switching to another page with harder questions. "You're reading a magazine and you come across a full-page photo of a naked woman—"

"Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, detective Fabray?"

Hazel eyes shot up at the question. The light flashing through Rachel's eyes showed a slight dilation of her pupils as she regarded Quinn evenly. Quinn ignored the question and continued.

"You show it to your significant other and they hang it on the bedroom wall."

"I wouldn't allow it," Rachel said quickly.

"Why wouldn't you?"

Her voice was soft when she challenged the question with, "Why aren't I enough?"

Quinn's jaw clenched at the question as her gaze dropped to the papers in her hand. She had never gotten an answer, or rather, _question_ like that before.

"Your father dies; what do you do?"

"I would be devastated."

"Yes, but what would you _do_?" Quinn reiterated.

Rachel stared at her for a long time. "I would cry, detective. Mournfully."

"You're at a crowded party with loud music, and everyone's dancing and having a good time. What would you do?"

That made Rachel pause. Her mouth opened, her bottom jaw trembling for a response. Finally, she settled on, "I would dance, as well."

Quinn stood abruptly from her seat. "We're done."

Rachel's eyes rounded to make her look almost concerned as she slowly stood from her seat. "Do I pass, detective Fabray?"

Quinn ignored her. Her eyes were hard as steel as she stared at LeRoy who was several paces behind Rachel.

LeRoy pushed into motion, walking up to Rachel and placing a hand on her shoulder. "You did very well, Rachel," he murmured. Rachel's attention was still on Quinn as if seeking her approval, and LeRoy gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Why don't you go ahead back to your office and I'll get detective Fabray here a replicant to test on."

Rachel sighed as her eyes finally left Quinn. She gave LeRoy a tentative smile as she smoothed her hands down her skirt as if she was nervous. "Very well, then. I'll see you later, daddy." She turned to Quinn. "It was a pleasure meeting you, detective Fabray." She turned around to swiftly walk out of the door, closing it soundlessly behind her.

"She doesn't know?" Quinn asked as soon as Rachel was out of earshot.

LeRoy wore a roguish smile as he turned toward her. "She was good, no?"

"I'll admit she's good at…portraying false emotions. And her instant recall of things like the date and her birthday is pretty exceptional. What—did you give her a faster processor than the others?"

LeRoy made a face at her choice of words, but didn't comment on them. "What gave her away?"

Quinn shot him a wry look. "She was good. But she sucks at social cues and situations. She faltered a little during the funeral question and completely _sucked_ during the party question."

LeRoy hummed softly, hands clasped behind his back as he pondered over her statement.

Quinn sighed heavily as she reached down to collect her papers, turning the briefcase around and stuffing them inside. She closed the test inside, hesitated, then placed her hands firmly on the table, curiosity getting the better of her as she looked up at LeRoy. "What _is_ she?"

LeRoy's jaw clenched as he angled his head towards her. His eyes flashed with pride as he told Quinn, "She's _special_."

* * *

Quinn sipped gingerly on a fresh cup of coffee at eleven at night as the phone cradled between her neck and shoulder began its third ring. She rested her forearm horizontally on the cabinet above the counter and laid her head against her arm as the line clicked over.

"Puckzilla on the line."

"Puck," Quinn hissed urgently into the phone at the sound of his voice.

"You're go for 'em, babe. What's up?"

Quinn sighed heavily. "Sue was wrong."

"What?" Puck's voice perked up suddenly, and a twinge of excitement laced his voice. "Wrong about what? Spill, Q, this is serious."

"She was wrong about the number of replicants. There aren't five, Puck. There are six," she babbled uncharacteristically.

"_Six_ fucking replicants," Puck spat incredulously. "Are you serious?"

Quinn nodded, though she knew he couldn't see. "It gets even weirder. The sixth replicant? She thinks she's _human_."

"The fuck?"

"Yeah. I put the EPR test on her today, and she almost passed it. I had to ask almost a hundred questions." Realization gripped her and her eyes widened as she stared down at her marble countertops. "If I had quit at the standard thirty, she would have passed that test, Puck. And I almost did, but something _told_ me to keep going."

Puck was quiet for a long moment. Finally a whispered curse floated through the line before he asked, "And she doesn't even know?"

"LeRoy told her that she passed and told her to leave. And get this—her name is Rachel. Rachel _Berry_."

"As in LeRoy Berry?" Puck asked needlessly.

"Pretty much."

Puck paused for a long moment. "His daughter? Are you sure the test isn't just wacked, Q? Maybe she really _is_ human."

"She failed the test," Quinn insisted. "Besides, LeRoy admitted that she's a replicant."

"And you're sure this chick doesn't know she's a replicant?"

"She was sitting there asking me if she passed the test, Puck. There's no way she knows." Quinn lifted off the cabinet to run a hand through her hair in frustration. "Besides, I stayed with LeRoy afterward and talked to him about it. He-he called her _special_. How sick is this man? Anyway, they're doing something completely new over there, Puck. Rachel's the first of this new kind of replicant who can generate emotions based on previous experiences that have been implanted into her hardwired 'brain'."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Q?"

"Memories," she whispered. "LeRoy said he gave her memories—false ones. And he completely reconstructed her make-up. He says she's basically human. A human made by a human."

"What the fuck are they trying to do over there?" Puck asked rhetorically. "Don't they remember when they tried to give those skin-jobs emotions and it completely backfired? Those things went crazy. They're not human, Q, and they're not meant to be."

Quinn snorted sardonically. "Tell that to Dr. Frankenstein."

"Well, where is this Rachel chick now?"

"Schuester Corp. LeRoy seems to be able to keep her under control under the guise that he's her father and she's interning there for a few months."

"She seems harmless, Q," Puck admitted after a moment. "She doesn't even know what she's capable of. I mean, she thinks she's _human_," he laughed. "Plus, she's cooped up at Schuester's for now, so she's not an immediate threat. I say we take care of what's out in the streets now and get her later."

Dread churned in Quinn's stomach as she chewed on her lower lip. But Puck was right. There were much more dangerous replicants on the streets now that needed to be taken care of. Rachel was a sitting duck at Schuester's Corp where she would be once Quinn, Puck, and Santana managed to get rid of the others.

"Yeah," Quinn agreed after a moment. "You're probably right. Hey, listen, just don't tell Sue about this, okay? She'd have our asses for this."

Puck chuckled. "I like my ass just fine. I won't tell."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

**A/N: **Thank you everyone for your reviews! I love the enthusiasm and it gets me really hype, as well.

* * *

Quinn slid smoothly into the parking space in front of her apartment. She killed the engine with a sigh, twisting her neck to loosen her tired muscles. Truth be told, she had been ready to accept Rachel as a human halfway through that test and the fact that Rachel had nearly slipped under her radar was jarring. It seemed that LeRoy was getting better at constructing his androids, and that more than anything was giving Quinn the initiative to retire them once and for all.

She grabbed her gun from the glove compartment and slid it in the inside lining of her coat. Then she grabbed her groceries, three bags of protein, a little carbs, and guilty pleasure sweets, and opened the car door to step out.

"Good evening, Quinn!"

Quinn jostled the bags in her arms to see over them towards her neighbor. "Good evening, Mrs. Scott!" Quinn pleasantly called back as she walked up the stairs and into her apartment building.

The landlord, an ornery old man with a hump back was opening his door to step outside and Quinn quickly hurried to the elevator, stepping inside with a relieved sigh when the door opened. Her landlord was a prick and she avoided him as much as she could.

"Hi, detec—"

"What the hell!" Quinn exclaimed, dropping her bags and reaching for her gun with practiced ease to draw it on the other occupant in what she had thought was an unoccupied elevator.

From a dark corner on the floor of the poorly lit elevator, a figure emerged. It was a woman, Quinn guessed from the softness of her voice, and she was short once she stood to her full height. She took a couple of hesitant steps forward into the dim light.

Quinn sighed.

Rachel.

Shadows danced along her tan skin, and Quinn squinted to see her better.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?" Quinn gritted out through clenched teeth, fear quickly morphing into anger at the sight of Rachel. "I could have shot you!"

"I'm sorry," Rachel said softly, wringing her hands together. She appeared nervous as she continued to step forward.

"What are you doing here?" Quinn demanded again.

"I-I wanted to see you," Rachel stammered. "_Talk_ to you," she corrected. "So, I waited."

The elevator dinged open as Quinn glared at Rachel, gun firmly pointed forward. She could take the shot with no repercussions, because no matter how much Rachel pretended to be human, she wasn't. It would have been so easy. One gone, five more to go.

She watched Rachel's chest heave with a large breath as if she was afraid, and Quinn slowly withdrew her gun. Perhaps another day. Perhaps in another situation, one that would be gratifying and not this pathetic fish in barrel situation. There was a part of Quinn that was beginning to want Rachel to _know_ her own status before she was retired.

Keeping her in her line of sight, Quinn slowly placed her gun back into her coat pocket and bent down to grab her groceries.

Rachel breathed another needless breath, depriving actual oxygen breathing humans of air as she took another step forward. "Let me help you."

"What do I need your help for?" Quinn shot back as she stepped out the elevator.

Head bowed, Rachel followed silently behind her as they walked to Quinn's door. Quinn dropped her bags at her side to fish her keys out of her pocket.

Wordlessly, Rachel bent down to grab the groceries, hoisting them into her arms and turning to better see Quinn.

When the door opened, Quinn turned around to find Rachel diligently holding her grocery bags in her arms. Jaw clenched, she pushed the door open more and walked inside. Rachel followed behind her, kicking the door closed with her foot. She nearly dropped a bag in her arms and quickly bent lower to get a better grip on it before following Quinn into the kitchen.

"You have a lovely home, detective Fabray," Rachel complimented as she looked around the living room.

Quinn felt for her gun to make sure it was still there as she trained sharp eyes on Rachel. "Thank you." She nodded towards the table in the corner of her kitchen. "You can sit them there."

Nodding with a disarming smile, Rachel walked the groceries to the corner of the room and sat them down. She turned around, tugging on the hem of her sweater as she stared at Quinn.

Quinn leaned back against the counter and crossed one leg over the other, folding her arms across her chest. She canted her head to the right to stare at Rachel. "Once again, why are you here, Berry?"

Rachel cleared her throat. "You think I'm a replicant," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.

"And you think you're human."

Rachel's chin jutted out in pride and defiance. "I _am._"

"Then why are you here?" Quinn asked coolly.

Rachel stared at her blankly. She rubbed her lips together in thought before quietly answering. "Because you doubt me, and daddy won't tell me why."

Quinn scoffed, biting down on her lower lip while shaking her head. "_Daddy_?"

Rachel's spine straightened at the condescending tone that dripped from Quinn's voice. "That's who he is to me, detective. My father."

"Then why are you _here_?" Quinn bit out scathingly. "Run along to your father, and your life, Berry."

"I need answers," Rachel said, voice so soft it was as if her lips moved without speech. "And he won't tell me why you have such a false opinion about me."

"False?" Quinn prompted. Her steps were slow and predatory as she approached her mark to stand a few feet in front of her. It would be like taking candy from a baby, retiring Rachel right now. "If you really thought you were human you wouldn't be here."

"I _am_ human," was Rachel's instant and seemingly only defense.

Quinn smiled cruelly. "Oh, yeah?" she goaded. "When's your first memory?"

Rachel didn't answer right away, and Quinn continued, wanting to get this skin-job out of her house as soon as possible.

"When you were five?" Quinn pressed scathingly, recalling all LeRoy had foolishly told her days ago. "Are you on a carousel?"

Rachel's face went ashen at the description and Quinn chuckled mirthlessly.

"Do you have memories of falling off a bike and skinning your knee? Pictures of your mother who possibly died?"

"Shut up," Rachel whispered. Her throat worked with a tight swallow. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you have memories of going to the zoo? Prom?" Quinn continued, egging Rachel on. "Hell, do you even have _memories_ of this so called mom?"

"Shut _up_!" Rachel shouted, slamming her hand down on the table. A loud cracking noise ricocheted off the walls in the silence between them. Rachel's eyes widened immediately at her own outburst and she drew in on herself, curling her hand to her chest. Quinn stepped closer and Rachel cowered away from the table as Quinn looked down at it. The wood was splintered and cracked where Rachel's fist had been, a deep impression left in the corner of the table.

Quinn looked over at her, and grabbed Rachel's wrist, thin and limp in her warm hand. She turned Rachel's hand around for inspection and saw no damage, just smooth tan skin. "Yeah, a human could _so_ do this," she replied dryly, referencing her table.

Rachel's lower lip trembled. "I _am_ human," she defended, jerking her hand back. Her dark eyes began to glisten as the overhead light in the kitchen shined down on them, and Quinn took a step back at the sight as a lone tear slid down Rachel's cheek. "Why are you being so mean?"

Quinn quickly turned away from her, shock causing her chest to cave in. What the hell was that? _Tears_? This skin-job was able to cry? She ran her hand along the tightly coiled muscles in the back of her neck as she walked away from Rachel. Behind her, she could hear Rachel crying harder, a full on blubbering sound, and Quinn sighed heavily as a headache began to thump through her head. "What do I know?" Quinn grumbled. She heard Rachel sniffle and sighed again. "Look, you're human, all right? You're human. Clearly I was mistaken. So, go home."

Quinn turned around to find Rachel staring at her like a kicked puppy. "No, really. Go home, Rachel."

Taking her bottom lip between her teeth, Rachel suppressed gut-wrenching shuddery sobs as the realization of everything came crashing down on her. Her chest fluttered with uneven breaths as the vision of Quinn in front of her became blurrier with each tear that welled in her eyes. She took a step forward, and kept walking until she passed Quinn with hunched shoulders and walked out of the kitchen.

The next thing Quinn heard was her front door clicking shut and she sagged against the counter in relief. Befuddlement gripped her at the memory of how _real_ Rachel's tears looked along with the anguish on her face. But that couldn't be. Rachel was artificial. She couldn't feel emotions. Not to mention the fact that she was a replicant. She had failed the test despite LeRoy's best efforts to create the most human-like android in existence. She was arguably the most dangerous replicant out there because she could convey emotions better than the others Quinn had come across.

She needed to be retired. And Quinn would make sure that she was.

* * *

Quinn walked right into the precinct and bypassed Puck whom had a stupid good morning grin on his face. She made a sharp left around the corner toward her old office that Sue had given back to her.

"Whoa, what's your problem?" Puck asked, stiff arming the door that was almost slammed in his face. He opened it and slipped inside, closing it and hesitantly walking closer at the sight of the glare Quinn was shooting him with. "What'd I do?"

"I could _kill_ you right now!" Quinn hissed, reaching for her coffee mug. She twisted the lid with shaky fingers and took a luxurious sip. Sleep had eluded her last night. Thoughts of Rachel knowing where she lived plagued her mind, and she wondered if Rachel would off her now that the truth was revealed. Whether or not Rachel would show up to her apartment in the middle of the night, overpower her, and kill her on sight.

But something about Rachel seemed so harmless, that a part of Quinn doubted the girl even knew what to do with the strength that she had.

Across from her, Puck looked like a scolded child as he shrank down into the seat in front of Quinn's desk with shrugged shoulders. "What for?"

"Guess who the hell showed up at my apartment last night, Puck?" Quinn whisper-yelled.

"Sam?" he guessed, having no idea where this was going.

"Try _Rachel_," Quinn replied, face contorting into a grimace as she watched recognition flicker in Puck's dark eyes.

"The replicant chick?" he asked needlessly. "How the fuck did she get your address?"

"She 'works' at Schue's Corp, Puck, it's not hard to believe that she was able to get it with all the billion dollar state of the art technology they have lying around, herself included."

The weight of the situation was finally falling down on Puck, and his eyes hardened. "She didn't do any to you, did she?" He quickly glanced over Quinn in assessment. He'd never forgive himself if his childhood friend had been hurt after he told her not to worry about something she had obviously been worried about.

"She cried, Puck," Quinn sighed.

His jaw dropped. "What? You're sure that chick didn't hit you in the head or something?"

Quinn scoffed. "She cried when I told her she was a replicant."

"So, she really didn't know," he mused.

"She said LeRoy wouldn't tell her anything, so she came to find me." Quinn sighed, taking another sip of her coffee. She let the mug hover in front of her face for warmth as her elbows rested on the table. "I don't get this girl."

A roaring knock on the door pulled both of their attentions to it as it open to show Sue standing dauntingly in the doorway. "If you women are through gabbing, we have business to discuss. Be in my office in five seconds." She shut the door and walked out.

Puck and Quinn took one look at each other, then walked out of Quinn's office and into Sue's to find Santana already sitting down waiting. "Took you guys long enough," she griped.

Sue just stared at the two until they sat down. She was quiet for a long moment as she mulled over the words churning in her head. She liked to think of herself as a motivational speaker at heart, and she never spoke unless the right words were on the tip of her tongue.

"Blaine Anderson is a street walker," she finally settled on.

Santana was the first to react, an amused guffaw lurching her forward in her seat before she covered her mouth. "Sorry," she wheezed, completely unapologetic as she continued to laugh. "No one else finds this funny?"

Quinn scratched at her bunched forehead, eyebrow slowly rising. "Where does he…work?"

"Tyson Ward in Lima Heights."

"Fuck," Santana muttered under her breath. "I did not leave the projects just to go back."

"Oh, can I go?" Puck asked excitedly, gripping the arms of his chair.

"I'm sending Q and Santana in, because this guy should be easy." Sue smirked as she leaned back in her seat. "He's practically a sex doll."

"Well, what the hell am I gonna do?"

Sue stared at him with narrowed eyes for a long moment, sizing him up. Her elbows rested on the arms of her chair as she steepled her fingers together. "You'll be working with intel to take down Mercedes."

Quinn patted him on the shoulder before Puck quickly spun out of his chair in excitement. "See ya later, Q!"

He was out of the door soon after and Quinn trained her eyes on Sue whom was putting on a pair of reading glasses. She held up a stack of papers in front of her and read over them for a moment.

"Blaine was last seen with a man lacking facial hair, a rooster coifed mane, and porcelain skin," Sue muttered.

Quinn's lips scrunched up in confusion. "Are these notes from intel or your own notes?"

"Clearly they're mine," Sue admitted with an air of smugness about her. "Surveillance couldn't properly describe the boy, and from my years attending drag shows—don't ask, inflatable chest." Sue cut her eyes to Santana whose interest had peaked at the mention of drag shows. "I know a gay man when I see him and I know how to properly describe him."

"And no one knows what the skin-job prostitute looks like?" Santana asked.

"A short brunette; nothing more than that," Sue answered. "And apparently Schuester's Corp no longer has photos of their own replicants. That's something I'll personally get to the bottom of."

"Okay," Quinn drawled at the vague reply. Let the finding a needle in a haystack, Russian roulette game begin. She looked over to Santana. "You're driving. I don't know my way to Lima Heights."

* * *

Quinn leaned over to lock her door almost instantly when the car came to a stop.

Santana scoffed, face twisting in disdain. "Save your rich, white girl routine for people who'll care." She gestured to the people walking on the sidewalk outside. "Obviously they don't care enough to rob you."

Quinn swiveled around toward her. "We're cops, Santana, _no_ _one_ likes us. Whether we're in the suburbs or the ghetto, I'll lock my damn door." She turned back to her own business, reaching into her bag for the pair of binoculars she had picked up on her way out of the office.

They were parked on the corner of Tyson Street where surveillance attested to the man who bought Blaine for a few hours.

Santana's eyes narrowed to squint into her binoculars. "Think he'll come back?"

Quinn grabbed the grainy photo of the man that was given to them right before they left the precinct. Porcelain skin, indeed. Not that she had room to talk. She peered back through her binoculars toward the opposite end of the street. "Surveillance said that the guy walked down this way, paid Blaine, did the deed, then continued down your side of the street." She pushed out a breath. "I'm going to assume he lives somewhere in the area, perhaps works somewhere in the area, if he's walking about."

"Or he trolls this place for cheap sex," Santana grumbled. "Sick bastard."

An amused smile touched Quinn's lips. "You're judging the guy before you even get to know him."

"Would _you_ pay for sex?"

Quinn paused for a beat. "Good point."

They stayed diligent to their respective posts as silence fell between them. Quinn exhaled slowly, wondering how long this job was going to last. She was already focusing on her last mark: Rachel. Rachel, who was a replicant who mistakenly thought she was human until last night. Rachel, who punched a dent into her now splintered wooden table. Rachel, who Quinn honestly didn't know whether or not she was stable. And from drawing on past experiences, Quinn couldn't help but distrust her no matter how doe-eyed and innocent Rachel appeared to be.

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt when a tall, slender man came strolling down the sidewalk. "I may have something," Quinn murmured. She adjusted her binoculars to better see the coifed mane atop his head like Sue described. Fumbling behind her, Quinn attempted to find the picture on the center console.

Santana looked down and grabbed the picture, taking a look at it and placing it in Quinn's hands. "Well?" She grabbed her own binoculars and trained them on Quinn's side of the sidewalk. "What's he wearing?"

"Skinny jeans, a pair of chocolate boots, a tight black sweater, leather bag slung across his chest, and his best bitch face."

Santana scanned the six people walking on the sidewalk until she found the person Quinn was describing. Her lips curled into a sneer. "That's him."

"Let's go."

They dropped their binoculars and hopped out of the car. Quinn had learned long ago that blade running, when outside of the office, was not a pencil skirt and wedged heels line of work. She wore a pair of combat boots, tight jeans to run more smoothly and a simple dark top that she didn't care about getting blood on. She forgot to tie her hair back and it ran loosely down her shoulders as the wind picked up outside. Santana's hair was in a high ponytail and she wore a similar outfit to Quinn's as she rounded the car. She hurried forward with tight shoulders toward the sidewalk.

Quinn gawked at the overt way Santana was tackling the situation, then she remembered that Santana was new to the job. She glanced over at the man walking toward them unsuspectingly, then hurried toward Santana. She grabbed her shoulder, and Santana jerked away. "Are you crazy?" Quinn hissed.

"What are you talking about—he's right there!" Santana shot back heatedly. "Look, I was hired to do a job, and—"

"So, do it correctly," Quinn demanded. She looked across the street to find the man in question staring directly at them. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. "Now that you've blown our cover…" She reached into her pocket for her badge, trying to look as disarming as possible as she approached him. "Police."

At the sound of her voice he immediately took off in the opposite direction.

"Fucker," Santana growled, taking off like a shot after him.

Quinn jammed her badge back into her pocket and took off after both of them. "Police!" she yelled again. She had learned when giving chase in neighborhoods to identify herself in order to keep from getting killed because of being suspected to be a robber or other criminal, but also in case there was some kind soul who wanted to help.

Everyone on the sidewalk parted to the side as Santana passed by followed by Quinn; her legs pumped hastily to smack her booted feet against the pavement as she began to run just that much faster. The man in front of them wasn't particularly fast, but he was slender and winded through people easily.

Quinn began to pant as she gained on Santana, slowly passing her like it was nothing.

"What the hell?" she heard Santana exclaim in surprise from behind, but Quinn ignored her.

From several feet ahead Quinn saw the man turn into an alleyway, and she smiled. "Got you," she mumbled to herself. It was a rookie mistake, one that told Quinn this guy had probably never been in trouble with the law before. She skidded to a stop by the alleyway and rounded the corner to find him trying to climb a wire fence.

Quinn sped up on him and grabbed the back of his sweater with both hands, using her body weight to propel them both backwards. A surprise breath whistled from his throat when he was pulled back and Quinn used the momentum from their imbalance to slam him face first against the nearest brick wall.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" the man immediately cried. His hands braced obediently against the brick wall before Quinn could even wheeze out a warning. His feet parted, and he babbled out apologies as Quinn looked up, tossing her head back to remove a lock of hair from her face to better see Santana closing in on them.

Santana panted quietly as she stood off to the side, a pair of handcuffs dangling from two belt loops in her acid washed jeans.

"What are you, some Olympic sprinter?" Santana panted in shock.

"Sure," Quinn replied vaguely with a forced laugh. "Cuff him, will you?"

* * *

"What's your name?" Quinn asked tiredly. Interrogation rooms were never her favorite. A small, dark room with only one overbearing light, shadows along suspects' faces, nothing about it was appealing.

The man they had just caught had a small red, irritated patch across his cheek that rubbed a little too roughly against the brick wall Quinn had him against earlier. His arms were crossed over his chest in defiance, chin lifting as he turned his head just so to side-eye Quinn. "Kurt Hummel," he finally answered, voice soft and clipped.

Santana's eyes flicked over his designer outfit in judgement. "You don't look like you're from Lima Heights."

Kurt ran a hand through his hair, seeming to age in front of them as frown lines creased his face. "I'm not."

Santana shot Quinn a smug, _told you so_ look.

"What were you doing there, then?" Quinn asked.

Kurt remained stiff-lipped, staring at the wall.

When no one said anything for a while, Quinn sighed. "Okay. You have two options here, Kurt. You can either confess to buying sex from a pleasure-model replicant named Blaine Anderson, then talk to our sketch artist to composite a picture so we can find him. Or you can be held here until you give us more information."

"You can't hold me here against my will when there's no evidence that I've done anything, honey," Kurt insisted. "Fifth amendment."

"Mundane laws don't apply to us, _honey_," Santana spat. "When a suspect is held under suspicion of receiving fellatio from a replicant, they can be held for as long as I want them to be." Her eyes narrowed as her lips pulled into a condescending grin. "Santana's Bill of Rights."

"We also have you on video," Quinn said with a shrug. "So, you know, stall all you want, but you did it and we have proof."

Kurt's eyes widened as they shifted from Santana to Quinn and back again. "You're bluffing."

"Try us."

They had both said it, and attempted to stifle matching grins at how similar they were.

Kurt's chin trembled, lips parting, suspended from each other for a long moment before he actually spoke. "Please don't tell my dad," he whispered.

Quinn's face remained impassive though inside she was practically sobbing with relief at the possibility of getting home at a decent hour tonight. "Just tell us what happened."

"I was just in the neighborhood, you know?"

It was probably a lie, but that wasn't Quinn's problem. She was only concerned with one isolated incident, and didn't question why Kurt was in Lima Heights to begin with. "Continue."

"And he-he was just _there_," Kurt explained. "I didn't know he was a replicant right away, but then I figured it out. I freaked, okay? Then he said all he knew how to do was…you know, so he was harmless, I figured. And then he said he had been separated from the others."

Quinn exchanged a grim glance with Santana. Separation wasn't good.

"I have _never_ had the chance to have sex with a guy before."

"TMI," Santana complained.

"I just wanted to know what it was like. So, I gave the guy a few dollars, enough to put him up in a motel for a couple of days."

Quinn perked up at that tidbit of information. "What motel?"

"Motel 6, just something cheap," Kurt answered.

"Where is it?"

"A couple blocks down from Tyson Street."

The door to the interrogation room slammed open and Kurt jumped as Quinn and Santana turned around to find Sue standing there. "We're playing _Wife Swap_, ladies. Q, you're out and Puck's taking your place."

Quinn looked perplexed as she slowly stood from her seat. Sue stepped aside and Puck muscled through the doorway. He took one look at Kurt and frowned in exasperation. "How far did you get?" he whispered.

"Pretty far. Just make sure he talks to the sketch artist before he leaves," Quinn answered lowly in passing. She closed the door behind her to find Sue standing across the hallway with her arms folded. "There a reason you called me out of there?"

"Were you able to put the EPR test on a skin-job at Schuester's?"

Quinn instantly thought of Rachel. And this was the time she could admit to Sue that there was a replicant over there that she didn't include in her headcount, a replicant that wasn't going into outer space and, therefore, could be retired. "No." Quinn lied instead. "There were no active replicants there."

Quinn had instead decided that if anyone was going to retire the replicant that had boldly showed up at her apartment, it was going to her and her alone.

Sue nodded. "Then I want you to put the test on Blaine when he gets here."

"Okay."

"And find out his age. The other replicants will be the same age; they all came off the line at the same time."

Quinn clasped her hands behind her back to lean against the wall. Her lips quirked in incredulity as she regarded Sue. "Kill switch?"

The kill switch was what every replicant was created with. It was a vile in the circuit boards in their heads that was set to leak acid and fry their mainframes after four years of activity, effectively retiring them. It was meant to be a foolproof plan to ensure that the replicants didn't learn thoughts and actions that could be detrimental to human life with their superior strength and speed.

"From what I heard from eavesdropping, Blaine isn't a part of the pack anymore," Sue muttered. Her gaze was trained on one-way glass to watch Puck, Santana, and Kurt in the interrogation room. "An android with individuality is a dangerous thing, and it stinks of old age."

"You think they're close to their kill switch date?" It raised questions of Rachel and whether or not she was from the same line as the others and subsequently had the same kill switch date.

"I think if they are," Sue began carefully, "then they're going to be smarter and more cunning than I originally thought. They've probably been able to learn and build upon that knowledge. They may even learn emotions."

Quinn shot her a doubtful look.

"Hate, fear, anger, envy, love—"

"The day I see a replicant love I'll eat my hat," Quinn drawled with an eyeroll.

Sue's lips lifted into a lopsided grin. "You don't own a hat."

Quinn smirked. "Exactly."

Silence hung heavy between them for a long moment. Then Sue pushed off the wall and walked down the hallway. "Take a lunch break. I'm making Puckerman catch Blaine since he allowed Mercedes to so skillfully elude him."

* * *

Blaine was even smaller than Quinn had originally thought. He was soft spoken and bouncy with a blinding smile that was truthfully annoying. He was definitely a replicant, though, and had failed the EPR test miserably. Quinn stared at him for a long moment as he stared blankly back—nothing but a light show, indeed. "Where are the others?"

"I wouldn't know," Blaine answered in a flat voice devoid of emotion. "They left me."

His words weighed heavy in Quinn's mind. _They_—the replicants were starting to distinguish others from themselves, and _me_—they were starting to individualize. Replicants weren't created with the higher function to see themselves as individuals, and the fact that this one did made Quinn question his age. Quinn reached behind her, into the waistband of her jeans to feel the weight of her gun. "When did you last see them?"

They had impeccable inner clocks, so when Blaine spat out, "Three days, thirteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, ten seconds," she knew this to be accurate.

"Why are you all here?"

Blaine's face twitched faintly. "I don't know."

Quinn's eyes widened the barest hint. He had just lied to her. That was certainly a learned trait. "So, what—you just happened to kill a spaceship full of people and crash land on Earth? Did you hear it was a buyer's market and wanted to settle down?"

Blaine didn't respond, and Quinn sighed, "How old are you?"

"Three years, ten months, five days, twelve hours—"

"That's enough, Blaine. Thank you." Just as Sue had suspected, Quinn noted. They were dangerously close to their kill switch date, which meant that in almost four years they could have learned anything.

Which ultimately meant that it was time to end this. Replicants on Earth were illegal under penalty of retirement. Schuester knew this, and could kiss his million dollar investments goodbye. Quinn idly wondered yet again how old Rachel was, and if she was near her kill switch date as well.

Pushing the thought aside, Quinn stood quickly and pulled out her gun in one fluid motion. She trained it on Blaine and he jumped back in his seat with a slackened bottom jaw. "Tell me where they went."

Blaine's expression turned grim as he leapt from his seat. In a pair of handcuffs he lunged savagely head first across the table. Quinn took three measured steps back and fired just as many shots in his head. Blaine fell limp and unmoving to the ground. There was no thick, red blood dripping from his head to signify a human being. There was simply…nothing.

It was like unplugging a toaster oven.

Quinn clicked the safety on and placed her gun back into the waistband of her jeans. She swung her leg over Blaine at her feet and walked out of the interrogation room.

Sue was predictably waiting for her. "You couldn't get more out of him than that?"

"No," Quinn answered curtly. "Once he had lied to me, I was pretty much done with him."

"They can lie; they can separate themselves from the group—"

"They can be _separated_ from the group," Quinn corrected. "The way Blaine had briefly described it, _they_ left _him_. He was left to his own devices and did the only thing he really knew how to do."

"Turn tricks to get a motel room for a couple of nights." Sue smirked. "_Pretty Woman_ ain't got nothing on this story." Her face turned somber as she recalled one piece of information. "They're almost four."

"And they're stealthy," Quinn added. "No one's called about a replicant losing their minds and killing everyone in a mall or something."

"Yet."

She nodded imperceptibly. "Yet."

* * *

Quinn sighed from a long day's work as she walked out of the elevator. She saw a small figure curled into a ball on her doorstep and her heart lurched at the sight. Hand twitching, it flew behind her to grab the handle of her gun. Her eyes narrowed as the figure began to stand up.

It was Rachel. Again.

Rachel stood to her full height in front of Quinn's door. The past day or so seemed to have aged her and she finally looked that twenty she had been talking about as she regarded Quinn evenly.

Neither one of them spoke a word to each other for a long moment. Truthfully, Quinn was in shock. She couldn't for the life of her figure out what the hell Rachel wanted from her and why she kept showing up at her apartment.

When it was clear Rachel wasn't going to say anything, Quinn walked forward, fully prepared to get inside her house and leave Rachel outside, or put a bullet through her head if she tried anything.

"Are you going to kill me?"

Quinn's spine straightened at the blunt question and the soft tone of voice it was spoken in. She jiggled her keys out of her coat pocket, glaring at Rachel for her audacity before opening the door. She grabbed Rachel by the arm and yanked her inside. The door closed behind them and Quinn slammed Rachel against it so hard that the China on her living room table shook audibly. Rachel didn't even bat an eye. "Don't you _ever_ ask me a question like that on my doorstep again, do you hear me?" Quinn growled.

Rachel looked completely unrepentant, a touch defiant as she stared up at Quinn with wide eyes. "Are you?" she demanded.

Quinn pushed off of her. She stared at Rachel for a long moment. "Only humans can be killed. Replicants are retired." She then turned to walk away. "However, to answer your question: yes."

She walked through the living room and into the kitchen, shrugging out of her jacket and tossing it onto the kitchen table. Rachel stomped audibly behind her and into the kitchen as well, tears already welling in her eyes. She spotted the gun in the waistband of Quinn's jeans and quickly grabbed it.

"What the hell?" Quinn spun around as fast as she could, expecting the gun to be pointed at her.

But Rachel was pointing it at herself in a melodramatic way that made Quinn's heart race regardless.

"Do it," Rachel told her in a thick voice as her chin trembled. Her eyes were glistening once more to Quinn's astonishment.

Quinn dared to take a step closer. Once she had a second to think rationally she remembered that she always put her safety on when she wore her gun in the waistband of her jeans, and that this showdown wasn't all that serious.

But from the way Rachel was now crying, it was a serious matter to her, it seemed. "Rachel—"

"Do it!" Rachel shouted suddenly. Her chest heaved with a hiccup as tears slid down her cheek. Her hand shook around the gun and it slid through her air like a warm breeze. "What do I have to live for? Am I even _alive_?"

Feet quiet against the tiled floors of her kitchen, Quinn took measured steps toward Rachel. She was treating this like a suicide situation, which she didn't understand. But years of training sent her brain and body into autopilot and she found herself actually talking to Rachel like she was a person. But her words belied that sentiment.

"Am I, detective Fabray?" Rachel whispered.

"No," Quinn answered just as quietly. "No, you're not."

An anguished cry that Quinn would never forget crawled from Rachel's chest as she sunk to the floor. Her bangs covered her eyes as she stared down at the tiled floors she was crying real tears on. Quinn could see them clear as day on the floor; they were real. Rachel's shoulders sagged forward and the gun dropped to the floor, bare legs resting against cold tile.

Small sobs radiated off of Rachel as she wrapped her arms around her shaking frame. She looked up at Quinn with red-rimmed eyes, looking betrayed and hopeful all at once. "Can you hold me?" she whimpered.

Quinn swallowed heavily at the sight of her mark crumpled before her, asking to be held. Quinn didn't know what kind of world Rachel dwelled in—asking for the person who was going to kill you to hold you sounded ludicrous to Quinn's ears. Rachel should have been fighting back. Quinn could grudgingly admit that Rachel could easily overpower her and kill her, the only person as far as Rachel knew to know she was a replicant. It would be so easy for her, yet Rachel was here instead, on the floor looking broken as she stared up at Quinn. This was not what Quinn had signed up for.

Prior training of how to handle anxious and distressed people had Quinn kneeling down to be level with Rachel in an attempt to establish direct eye contact. Rachel cowered away from Quinn. "Please don't kill me," she whispered.

Quinn had never met a replicant that begged for its life in such a way. It was like a human facing the barrel of a gun and realizing that they had so much to live for, pleading for their life because they had a family and so many years left to live a fulfilling life.

"What am I?" Rachel asked in a meek voice and wide, wet eyes, expecting Quinn to have all the answers.

Jaw clenching at how much trust rested behind that question, Quinn looked away with a sigh. "I think you should go home," she declared with finality.

They both sat there for a moment longer as Rachel composed herself. She wiped her eyes with tiny sniffles of sadness and confusion, and Quinn eyed her wearily.

Then Rachel stood up, legs shaky like Bambi as she took a step forward. Quinn's eyes strayed to her gun laid forgotten on the floor. It would be so, so easy.

But it felt so inhumane.

She hopped up on her feet to find Rachel staring sorrowfully at her. "I'm truly sorry for imposing like this, detective Fabray," Rachel murmured. "It was very inconsiderate of me to burden you with my own problems, and—"

"Just stop," Quinn sighed, not wanting an apology for…this. Whatever this was.

"Are you going to kill me, detective?" Rachel asked again as if hoping that after all of this Quinn would change her mind.

"I'm a blade runner," was all Quinn said. "Replicants on Earth are illegal under penalty of retirement."

Rachel's breath hitched. "I see," she whispered mournfully. "Well, I know my way out, so…" When there seemed nothing left to be said, Rachel turned away and walked out of the kitchen.

The same click signaling Rachel's departure that was heard a day ago was heard again now and Quinn slumped back against the counter tiredly. She looked down at her unused gun and asked herself when the hell did she grow a conscious for replicants when she had just retired one a few hours prior. She bent down and swiped up her gun, ignoring the tears glistening on her floor.

There was absolutely no way she could tell Sue about this now, not that she ever planning to.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

* * *

Quinn woke up half expecting to find Rachel curled up in the corner of her room, crying. Thankfully she wasn't there, and after swinging at her alarm until it quieted, Quinn stretched in her giant room with the luxury of being alone. Pitch black sheets crowded about her waist as a white tank top clung to her skin. She blinked bleary eyes open to stare at her ceiling, then veered off to the rest of her room. She did pretty well for herself considering she had been providing for herself since she was eighteen. Her father had lost all the money he extorted over the years in one fell swoop when his business partner swindled it out from under him, and Quinn had been left to her own devices ever since.

Her parents, who had divorced when she was sixteen because her father was unfaithful, were forced to combine everything and move back into one house because neither could afford a mortgage each. It was a soap opera waiting to happen, and Quinn had taken the first chance she had at moving out when the blade runner academy came calling and offered pay for training. She had been able to put herself up in a relatively cheap apartment and hadn't looked back since.

She swung her legs over the bed and sat them down on polished wooden floors. They were stiff at the knee this morning, and she extended them slowly, working them back down, then up again until she could move them without her left eye squinting in discomfort. She stood to full height slowly and took measured steps forward with a sigh.

She was in business.

Her morning routine was breezed through: a cold shower to force her sluggish body to wake up, brushing her teeth, placing a small hoop earring into each ear, and dabbing on a hint of lipstick—enough to say _I want to look good_ and not _I'm looking for an affair at the office_.

The thud of her booted feet clunked through the narrow hallway that led from her bedroom toward the living room with the bathroom and kitchen off to the side. She paused past the bathroom and at the threshold of the kitchen, squinting into the living room at the light flashing on her answering machine on the table in the right corner beside one of couches against the wall. It was a very old school device, but at the time she had bought it she was still struggling with money, having just made a security deposit on her apartment with her first paycheck and having just enough left over for a chunky ten dollar corded phone and answering machine combo.

Her head tilted in muted curiosity as she walked into the living room, again half expecting to see Rachel. Quinn was beginning to feel a little put out of her own home, which started to irritate her. She squeezed between the couch and the coffee table in front of it to lean over the arm of the couch and press the button with the red light flashing above it.

_You have one new message. You have three saved voice messages_, her answering machine needlessly informed her in a feminine and charming voice. _First voice message:_

"_Detective Fabray, this is Dr. Berry. It's been my understanding that Rachel has been visiting you. I would like to flat out say that I don't appreciate the way you've been talking to her and would like to see you at your earliest convenience. Please call to schedule an appointment. Have a nice day_."

The message ended, and Quinn saw red. She stalked back through the living room and into the kitchen to prepare a pot of coffee as her jaw worked back and forth. She was an occasional teeth grinder when under stress, much to her dentist's chagrin. The message sitting on her machine was simply unprofessional and unnecessary. What transpired between Quinn and Rachel no longer became LeRoy's business the second Rachel decided to engage Quinn in her own home. Quinn wondered just what the hell Rachel had told LeRoy that warranted a barely contained angry voicemail on her machine.

She poured coffee into a mug, thoughts elsewhere. She didn't know whose ass she wanted to shove her boot up more: Rachel's or LeRoy's. Popping the top snuggly onto her coffee mug, Quinn switched the coffee pot off and stormed out of the kitchen, grabbing her keys on the table beside the door and headed to work.

* * *

The double doors were ajar like the last time and Quinn slipped soundlessly inside. She had decided to use her lunch break to head over to Schuester's Corp. The blinds were drawn over the large window on the other side of the room causing black and gray shadows to align side by side along the expansive room. It was darker inside than last time and Quinn allowed her eyes to adjust before walking further inside. For all she knew this could have been a set up to off her considering as far as LeRoy knew Quinn was the only one who knew of Rachel. Dr. Berry was already in the room, sitting on one of the many chairs at the table. He stood as Quinn walked toward him.

"You wanted to see me, Dr. Berry," Quinn stated plainly. Her voice barely echoed off the walls as she stopped in the middle of the room to distance herself from LeRoy.

"I did," he agreed. He placed his hands in the pockets of his lab coat where they curled into noticeable fists. "Detective Fabray, it is your job to retire replicants—not to heckle my daughter."

Straight to the point. Quinn's tongue clucked along the roof of her mouth in a rude display of her annoyance. "My _job_ is to retire replicants, Dr. Berry, of which your 'daughter' is one of them. Furthermore, all bets are off when she shows up to _my_ apartment of all places unannounced and certainly uninvited. So before you even begin to berate me about how I treat Rachel, you need to get her in check first."

LeRoy began to look visibly sick as his forehead creased, brow bunching in irritated incredulity. "You're going to retire her? _Still_?"

He sounded like Rachel, and Quinn rolled her eyes. "She's a _replicant_."

"She's _harmless_," LeRoy insisted. "Does she really threaten your own existence that much?"

"Replicants on Earth are illegal under penalty of retirement." Quinn's eyes hardened. "You all know the laws. Just because you've managed to create something that's passable as human doesn't mean she _is_ human."

"She _is_ human." LeRoy took a step closer, fists clenching in his coat pocket. "More human than human, detective Fabray."

"I suppose that's debatable, but a moot point considering she's an android."

"She can walk, talk—she can _feel_, detective."

Quinn gave pause at the last of his statement as memories of Rachel's tears remaining on her tiled floors until they evaporated came to mind. "She seems to be able to simulate emotions," Quinn grudgingly admitted.

"She can emote, period, detective. From what I've gathered you've witnessed that much." Quinn didn't respond right away, and pride for his own creation blossomed on LeRoy's face. "As I've stated, she's special."

"Just because you keep calling her special doesn't mean she can 'emote' where it really matters," Quinn told him. "Her heart can't race when she's scared, or happy, or—"

"She has a sympathetic nervous system," LeRoy informed her. "She doesn't have a…heart, per se, but she can feel fear, anger, arousal—normal human emotions and her body has been created to act accordingly."

"Excuse me?" Quinn spat, unable to help her curiosity though she was starting to feel sick.

"Her pupils dilate—as you've seen. She can become anxious, jittery, cheerful, mournful…sexually aroused."

Her eyebrow slowly rose at the last of his statement. "What kind of 'father' are you, exactly?"

He looked wholly offended by what she was suggesting and frowned accordingly. "I created her to live the most fulfilling human life possible, detective Fabray. The act of sex is essential to human interaction and building intimate, trusting relationships, and I would be remiss to ignore that. Wouldn't you agree?"

Whether she agreed or not was beside the point. "You can give her synthetic anything, Dr. Berry, and she'll only be an android," Quinn declared with finality.

"Are humans not androids, detective Fabray?" LeRoy instantly countered with.

Quinn laughed hollowly at his statement. Where was this even going? "No."

His eyes, dark and sharp, strayed to the chain with a cross dangling around her neck. His head tilted in curiosity. "You think that you're better than a human created human because a divine being created you?"

Quinn's eye widened at the question, caught off guard. She cleared her throat, hands clenching at her side in discomfort at having her religion thrown so carelessly into this argument. "I was made of flesh, bone, and nerve endings, Dr. Berry. Unless Rachel is made from those things and not synthetic flesh, hard, cold metal, and receptors capable of reading her surroundings and making her act accordingly, she isn't human."

LeRoy's lips pressed into a hard line of irritation. "She can taste, touch, feel—the same as you, detective. One can even argue that you can't even feel if the callous way she's told me you talk to her is any indication," LeRoy stated coldly. "Tell me, Quinn, who's the real android: Rachel or you?"

Taken aback, Quinn gawked at him with a slackened jaw before every muscle in her face pulled rigid with tension. Her lips curled back as she opened her mouth to retort.

"Daddy, stop."

Shock all the way to her bones made Quinn swivel around to find Rachel walking toward them. She was speed walking with determination lacing her every step before coming to a smooth stop a few feet away from Quinn. Consternation gripped her eyebrows and pulled them together as her eyes strayed from Quinn to LeRoy.

"I can't _believe_ you," Rachel said. Her voice trembled with every syllable and Quinn marveled at gestures she had taken for granted presenting themselves in Rachel. "Daddy, I've begged you for days to tell me these things and you haven't."

LeRoy looked flushed with guilt when Quinn's eyes strayed from Rachel to him. "These are meaningless facts," he tried to defend.

"They're meaningless to you because they don't apply to you," Rachel cried, and Quinn suddenly felt she was intruding on an odd family quarrel. "These nuances are my _life_, father. You need to be honest with me!"

Rachel's voice was slowly gaining fervor the way it had right before she punched her fist into Quinn's wooden table a few days ago.

"Rachel—"

"No, daddy, you can't just gloss over these things as if they don't mean anything!" Rachel shouted. "You've kept this from me for two years!"

Her voice was reaching levels Quinn was sure only dogs would be able to pick up on, but her brain tripped and fell over the last of Rachel's statement. Rachel was two years old, and Quinn gathered that she wasn't off the same line as the other replicants.

But as she watched the back and forth exchange between Rachel and LeRoy, Quinn was sure she wouldn't get any more answers today.

"Excuse me," she cut in curtly.

Rachel visibly deflated at having been cut off. LeRoy's hands dropped at his side as they both focused on Quinn.

"This is clearly none of my business, and I have to report back to work anyway," she prefaced. She nodded in their direction as she took measured steps backward toward the door. "Good day to you both."

She spun on her heels to walk away when Rachel's, "I'll walk you out," caused her to falter, but only minutely as she continued out of the door. Rachel's footsteps, quiet in the pair of flats she wore, were barely heard behind her as Quinn stopped at the elevator. She leaned sideways to press the down button then straightened to find Rachel by her side.

She was staggeringly short without the aid of heels, which exasperated Quinn because of all the strength that lay dormant in such a small body.

"Allow me to apologize for how reckless my father spoke to you, detective Fabray," Rachel said quietly. She was back to normal, it seemed—if this could be considered normal for her.

Quinn brushed it off. "Don't worry about it."

The elevator doors parted, and Quinn stepped inside, followed by Rachel. They stood side by side once again in the elevator as Quinn leaned over to press the appropriate button for the ground floor.

"Can I ask you a question, detective?" Rachel's voice was heavy once more as she spoke.

"Sure."

Rachel turned to look up at Quinn. "Will you at least tell me _when_ you plan to kill me?"

Quinn didn't bother correcting her word choice as she avoided Rachel's big eyes, focusing instead on the LED screen that counted down the number of floors. "You'll be last."

"And how many are left?"

"Four."

Rachel's gaze dropped to the carpeted floors in the elevator to consolidate this information. "Okay," she said softly.

The elevator came to a smooth stop on the ground floor and opened slowly. Quinn walked out with a sigh. "Have a good day."

Rachel stayed put in the elevator as the doors closed. "Goodbye, detective."

* * *

With one replicant down without human casualties, morale around the precinct was steadily increasing. Thus far there were no reports of more deaths by replicant hands, which pleased the precinct, but puzzled Quinn. She began to wonder just what the replicants wanted, or if they were just content to spend the rest of their existence performing tasks they were meant to perform.

But she thought back to Blaine who had lied to her when Quinn had asked why they were on Earth. Which in turn meant that they _did_ have a purpose, one they were keeping a secret.

She was shaken out of her thoughts when the radio behind her on the window sill began reporting news that was actually worth listening to. Quinn scooted back from her desk on her roller chair, spinning around in it to turn up the radio.

"…_in what has become our story of the week: a replicant was spotted shopping in our very own mall, Lima citizens. This may surprise some of you because, as far as we know, replicants are illegal on Earth. But we have several eye witnesses who have seen one. That's all we've heard so far, but we'll keep you posted when more information arrives. For now let's crack into this Top 40 with the next song_—"

Quinn flipped the switch on her radio and stood from her seat. How she had predicted this days ago, she would never know. Perhaps replicants were predictable after all. Her coffee sat proudly on her desk, forgotten as she grabbed her gun and jacket to head out of her office. Santana's office was just two doors down and Quinn knocked on her door twice before opening it.

Hazel eyes widened at what was before her. Santana was in her seat, scooting closer to a leggy blonde perched atop her desk with crossed legs that were slowly beginning to uncross. Quinn knocked once more, loudly, in order to stop what was happening before it could go any further.

Neither of them jumped as the woman on Santana's desk turned her head to see Quinn with impishly shining eyes. Santana craned her neck sideways to narrow her eyes at Quinn. "Damn it, Quinn, can't you see I'm busy?"

Quinn blinked at them in shock, before her shoulders pulled tight as she remembered why she was even there. "A replicant was spotted at the mall."

"When?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It was recent—they just reported it on the radio."

Santana sighed as if put out and the woman on her desk giggled. She uncrossed her legs fully and placed her feet on the floor to stand to her full height. She swiveled on pointed toes to walk toward Quinn and the second she started moving, Quinn could tell she was a dancer. Every step was purposeful and graceful. She bounced to a full stop in front of Quinn with a giant grin. "I'm Brittany."

Suspicions confirmed, Quinn politely offered her hand. She flicked up an eyebrow in Santana's direction and Santana smugly folded her arms across her chest. "Told you she was hot."

Brittany smirked. "She's the super-hot one. You, too," she added as an afterthought.

"It's nice to meet you, Brittany," Quinn greeted.

Santana saddled up beside Brittany to sling an arm around her waist. "I gotta go, B. Lunch?"

Brittany's arms draped around Santana's shoulders and she pulled her into a tight hug as if she'd never see her again. Quinn nearly gagged. "That'd be great! We should go to Taco Bell." When she pulled back there was a frown creasing her forehead as she backtracked with, "Well, maybe not Taco Bell. Lord Tubbington always has the runs after he eats the leftovers."

Quinn's expression became bemused as the feeling that she was intruding crept upon her.

"Lord Tubbington's my cat," Brittany explained to her with a warm smile. "You can meet him sometime if you want." She gasped suddenly as an idea struck her, and Quinn got the feeling that didn't happen often. "We should all have dinner tonight!"

Taken aback, Quinn instantly looked for a way out as Santana grinned at the closed off expression encroaching her features. "That sounds like a _great_ idea, B. Q loves eating out."

Her jaw clenched at the needless double entendre, and Quinn was pretty sure she would never be able to face Brittany again. Plastering on a false smile, Quinn said to Brittany, "The idea sounds wonderful, Brittany, and I would love to. But I'm afraid I'll have to rain check on dinner beca—"

"Dinner?" Puck poked his head into Santana's office. His eyes zeroed in on Brittany and it seemed that dinner was forgotten as he sized her up and sauntered into the office. "Hello, miss, can I get your name?"

"Yeah, Brittany—_my_ girlfriend," Santana barked before Brittany had the chance to introduce herself.

Puck rocked back on his heels to situate himself beside Quinn. "So—dinner?" he prompted.

Brittany grinned infectiously. "I'll see everyone tonight!"

Quinn kind of wanted to shoot them all, but the jumpsuits on death row were so last season.

* * *

The mall was predictably crowded when they arrived; it seemed that the replicant had attracted a younger crowd, the older crowd having dispersed. Quinn winded through the throng of people, cell phone glued to one ear with a finger jammed into the other one to better hear Puck.

"Are you listening to the radio?" Quinn asked. Her gaze flicked to Santana shifting from foot to foot in impatience beside her.

"_Yeah. Said she was looking for clothes at Rue21 earlier_."

Bewilderment struck her as she ended the call. Quinn turned to Santana. "Apparently the replicant's been shopping."

"What—they care about their appearance now?" Santana griped snidely.

Quinn shrugged as she spun on her heel. "Rue21 is this way."

There was a boisterous crowd around the store by the time Quinn and Santana made it there. Tension in the air was excitement laced with fear, apprehension, and wonder.

"_Police_!" Santana shouted. "Move out of the way!" She muscled rudely through the crowd and Quinn, trying to keep as low of a profile as possible, silently followed behind on the off chance that the replicant in question was still lurking about.

There were two clerks behind the counter—teens if the abundance of acne was anything to go by. One was a boy, a tall brunette with gangly limbs and a slender figure. A girl who was much shorter and pudgy stood off to the right with ruddy auburn hair. They both stood ramrod straight, color completely drained from their faces. Quinn approached the shaken pair with a disarming smile. "Hi, I'm detective Quinn Fabray, blade runner. Are you all right?"

The pair nodded, though neither said a word. The girl fidgeted with the hem of her shirt while the boy bit his lip, eyes darting from Quinn to Santana.

"I just have a few questions to ask about the replicant you saw here." Quinn fished out a pen and pad from her coat pocket and fired off a question. "Could you describe the replicant in as much detail as possible? Male, female, black, white, short, tall—you get the point."

The crowd around the entrance of the store seemed to loom over the interview, and Quinn's eyes narrowed at the loud side conversations outside that she could pick up.

Santana turned to glower at them, and the man who was about to boldly stroll into the store came to an abrupt halt, an embarrassed smile making his lips tremble.

"Female," the girl behind the counter spoke with a nod and a shrug. Her gaze veered off to the left before she looked at Quinn again. "African-American."

"She was a bit on the heavy side."

Quinn looked over toward Santana, then back to the boy who had just spoke. They didn't have pictures of the replicants and descriptions were very crucial. "How much on the heavy side, sir?"

He flushed, gazing down at the sterling silver rings that were selling for two ninety-nine on the counter. "Umm…"

Losing patience, Santana's hand slammed on the counter, and the boy's dark gaze shot up to hers immediately. "We don't have time for you to be PC to save some skin-job's non-existent feelings. Was she a fat slob or a chubby tender?"

"I—well, she—" He took his bottom lip between his teeth, and appeared nervous as he stopped talking.

Santana stared directly at him, eyebrows knitting together in irritation. She was two seconds away from hopping over the counter and taking the six foot lanky boy to the badly designed carpet.

"She, what?" Quinn prompted with an edge of impatience.

The girl shifted behind the counter, then took small steps toward the counter top. She braced her hands on the glass edge and leaned closer. Her eyes were wide with fear that hadn't been as palpable several minutes ago when it was little more than nerves. "She's here," she whispered.

Hazel eyes widened to mimic the girl's as Quinn stepped back from the counter. Her mouth flattened to a thin line as she looked toward Santana.

Santana stepped away from the counter completely. "Where?" she demanded quietly. She was learning.

Both of the clerks vaguely pointed toward the back of the store.

Quinn grabbed her gun, and silently motioned for the two store clerks to exit. She turned toward the back of the store with Santana and crept closer. There were tons of clothing racks all around the floor that could easily hide someone. Quinn and Santana winded around each one with their guns pointed, safety off. The floorboard creaked at Quinn's left and she spun around to find a sneakered foot creeping away. "I've found her!" she yelled to Santana as she chased after the replicant—Mercedes, as the radio had identified.

Quinn followed her toward the changing rooms, and rounded the corner only to be grabbed by her throat. Her eyes bugged out of her head the second Mercedes' hand closed around her windpipe.

"Q? Q, where'd you go?"

A garbled sound strangled from Quinn's throat as she tried to respond to Santana's distressed voice. Mercedes let go of Quinn's throat long enough to twist her around and slam her face against the glass mirrors that stretched the length of the hallway. Quinn winced at the painful rippling effect that shot through her head. She felt a hand press forcefully against her back, and held tight to her gun as Mercedes yanked back her arm while keeping a firm hand on her back.

Quinn cried out sharply at the sensation of her shoulder being pulled from its socket. She felt for her extremities which were starting to lose feeling and pulled the trigger of her gun behind her with tingling fingers. She didn't know where the bullet would go, but felt relieved when she heard Mercedes cry out. Mercedes stumbled, slumping toward the right, and Quinn guessed the bullet had pierced her leg. As far as Quinn knew, replicants were created without pain receptors, so the outcry from Mercedes was born more from shock and outrage than actual pain.

"Bitch!" Mercedes eyes narrowed as she stepped back and threw Quinn away from her. Quinn crumpled to the floor at Mercedes' feet, gasping for air. Pain shooting through her shoulder caused spots of color to flash behind her eyelids. She blinked her eyes open to point her gun upward and Mercedes smacked her hand to send the gun flying across the store.

"Damn it!" Quinn growled. She drew her leg as far back as she dared and jabbed her booted foot into Mercedes' stomach. Mercedes grunted as she lost balance, stumbling several feet back and tripping on a chair in the hallway of the changing rooms to land on her back.

"Damn Amazon!" Santana called Quinn. She scooped down to hook her arms under Quinn's and lifted her up. "Powerful kick." Quinn winced with a whimper and gently pressed her fingertips into her shoulder blade to assess the damage. It felt spongy with swelling, and Quinn groaned in pain.

From across the room, Mercedes hopped back to her feet and Santana drew her gun.

"No," Quinn wheezed, throat still raw and surely bruising. "We have to take her in for questioning, so you can't retire her now."

"You got any better ideas?" Santana asked as Mercedes approached them.

Quinn's eyes strayed from Mercedes to the handcuffs on Santana's belt loop. "I'll be a decoy, you handcuff her, and we'll pray that the cuffs can hold out long enough for backup to get here."

Santana aimed her gun and shot Mercedes once in the shoulder to further incapacitate her enough for this halfcocked plan to work. "I did not sign up for this shit."

* * *

Quinn angled her compact mirror to the side, lifting her chin and elongating her neck to ensure that the bruise she had put make-up on earlier wasn't visible. Mercedes was in lock-up where she would remain over the weekend until Monday questioning. Quinn and Santana had managed to subdue her until the cops had arrived with minimal extra damage done.

From beside her, Puck gently elbowed her. "Q, chill. Just enjoy yourself tonight and quit thinking about the job."

"The _job_ gave me a bruised shoulder, Puck," Quinn hissed back.

His eyes tightened as he eyed Quinn. Finally, he sighed. "I think I'm gonna ask Sue to make me your partner again."

"Why?" Quinn couldn't help but ask.

"Because this case has really got you worried and we've got a long way to go until they're all retired. I don't want to see you get hurt any more than you already have."

"I can take care of myself."

Sam eyed the two of them from across the table. When he couldn't hold his opinion anymore, he chimed in. "I also think Puck should be your partner." Quinn shot him a cold look of betrayal, but he didn't back down. "I'd rather see Puck come in with a bruised shoulder than you."

"Why—because I'm a girl?"

His mouth clacked shut. When it came to arguments like these he rarely won. "I'm just saying that I don't want you hurt."

"That Rachel chick hasn't visited you again, has she?" Puck asked.

"What Rachel chick?" Santana cut in. She and Brittany both ended their side conversation to focus on Quinn. "You gotta girl?"

"No," Quinn answered before glaring up at Puck. They stared at each other for a long moment before he sighed and went back to his meal.

"So, anyway, Brittany, tell me more about your smokin' hot dance troop," Puck began.

Brittany nodded. "They're all smoking hot, but all we do all day is dance."

"Sounds hot."

Quinn could feel Santana's eyes on her, but she ignored it and cut into her piece of medium rare steak.

"…and sometimes Santana and I dance together."

"I don't think they need to hear about that, Britt," Santana cut in.

Quinn picked up on her apprehension and smiled sardonically as her finger traced the lip of her wine glass. "Santana dances, you say?"

Santana shot Quinn a dirty look as Brittany flashed a bright smile. "She loves it! Sometimes we do ballroom—she's great at the tango."

Puck rested both elbows on the table, chin in his hands with a shit-eating grin on his face. "I'd love to watch the two of you tango."

"You don't quit, do you?" Santana growled.

"I was just saying—"

"Britts and I are _not_ a show."

They argued back and forth, Puck trying to keep from laughing in amusement at Santana's genuine anger, and Quinn watched the pair with a smug smile at her own ability to control conversations and steer the attention away from herself.

When she looked back over at Sam, he was watching her intently, questions swirling in his gaze.

* * *

The long brown paper bag crumpled as she switched hands to press the appropriate button in the elevator. Sam had needlessly bought her a bottle of Merlot to Puck's amusement and Quinn's constant exasperation. If she wasn't his friend, she reasoned she would have told him where to go a long time ago. She leaned heavily against the railing in the back of the elevator and crossed one leg over the other. It had been a trying day to say the least. She felt rattled and sore, the looseness of her right shoulder blade had Quinn feeling as if one more tug would cause her right arm to pop right from its socket. And she needed that arm—she shot better with her right than her left.

Her heels clacked out of the elevator to become muffled on the carpeted floors of her apartment building. Her feet protested every step. Everything about her was sore and tired and more than anything Quinn wanted a bed and a good night's sleep. What she got instead made her halt in place.

Rachel was sitting on her doorstep like a stray dog, again.

Quinn's day long irritation heightened that much more at the sight of yet another replicant. Every muscle in her body pulled taut with tension as she stiffly walked toward her door. She came to a stop a few feet in front of Rachel, looking unimpressed. "You have _got_ to stop doing this." She was too weary to be angry, though her eyes told a different story as they seemed to glare holes through Rachel.

Rachel stood to her full height and dusted off the back of her skirt as she kept her eyes trained on Quinn, the pinned back hair exposing her long pale neck, the blouse and skirt combo that ended mid-thigh, and the tall heels on her feet that made Rachel look skyward to maintain eye contact. Rachel had never seen Quinn dressed like this and silently acclimated herself. She scanned Quinn's body once more for detail, then met her eyes. "Good evening, detective Fabray. You look quite lovely."

"Thanks." Impeccable manners were just something Quinn couldn't shake, despite the fact that her eyes narrowed at Rachel on her doorstep. "I don't suppose you came all the way to my apartment…_again_ just to compliment me, Berry. What do you want?"

Rachel's hands wrung together in front of her and her eyes widened and rounded to soft circles. "May we talk inside? Please?"

Quinn stared at her for a long moment. Her neck, where Mercedes' fingers had been, throbbed in subdued pain compared to earlier. She ran her eyes critically over what Rachel was wearing—yet another hideous argyle sweater and skirt combo with demure flats that all combined to belie what Quinn knew lied just beneath the surface. She had just dealt with that particular brand of strength today. Eyes hardening in mistrust, Quinn walked toward the door.

Rachel took measured steps back to allow for personal space that humans seemed to treasure so much as Quinn unlocked the door. She followed silently inside and closed the door behind her. A light was flicked on and when she looked up, Quinn was watching her intently from across the room. She swallowed thickly. "Is something wrong, detective?"

Quinn sat the bottle of wine on the edge of the table. "What do you want, Rachel?"

"I…" Rachel went to respond, but trailed off when Quinn simply walked away from her. Rachel watched her as Quinn disappeared into the shadows at the back of her unlit apartment. She walked differently when in heels, Rachel noticed. There was a subtle sway in her gait that was much more tame any other time. Rachel's eyes then strayed around Quinn's living room. She had never taken the time to look at it the other times she was here, tears blurring her vision made it impossible to appreciate the trinkets all around Quinn's living room that alluded to money.

Quinn returned with the weight of her gun resting snugly in her hand. She peeled back its encasing and tossed it to the floor as she walked toward Rachel with more purpose.

Rachel looked away from the picture of Quinn as a child to find Quinn approaching her with coldness in her eyes. When Rachel looked down at the gun in Quinn's hand, she stiffened immediately and took a step back. "What are you—"

"I could have died today because of one of those _skin-jobs_. I'm not going to leave you to chance any longer."

Of their own volition, Rachel's hands rose above her head as if she were being arrested and not retired in Quinn's apartment. "What happened?"

Quinn took a step closer. When Rachel didn't hear the clacking of her heels her gaze dropped to find Quinn bare foot. Her eyes widened. "You promised me I'd be last," Rachel whispered forlornly. "Do promises not mean anything to you?"

"I value my life more than I value keeping promises to some skin-job," Quinn spat.

"I would never hurt you, detective Fabray," Rachel murmured. "Though I wish I could say the same for you."

"My job isn't to 'not hurt' you, Berry. You seem to be unable to comprehend that. I thought LeRoy gave you a better processor than the others. Too bad that didn't seem to help, because you don't seem to get the fact that _I will be retiring you_."

A flicker of hurt crossed Rachel's features before her eyes narrowed in irritation. It was only a moment later that she quickly shot across the room and lunged at Quinn.

Quinn's breath whooshed out of her in surprise, but she recovered quickly as she grappled for the gun when Rachel's hand grabbed the barrel. Quinn held the grip firmly, and wrestled the gun higher out of Rachel's reach. She reached up with both hands to free it, and a carnal smile of triumph twisted her lips when Rachel grunted as she lost grip.

But then Quinn felt arms snake around her waist and hold her tightly. Fear chased down her spine as Rachel recklessly threw her weight forward, and they both crashed onto the floor. Quinn jerked her left shoulder forward to throw Rachel's weight off her, but her right shoulder protested the jerky movement and she cried out quietly as Rachel shoved her left shoulder back to the floor with the palm of her hand.

Quinn's gun lay heavy in her right hand, and she drew it up when Rachel straddled her hips.

Rachel caught the flash of shiny metal out of the corner of her eye and ducked sideways when Quinn pointed the gun at her. She grabbed Quinn's wrist firmly and wrestled it to the floor above Quinn's head as she grabbed the left one.

Quinn lay there panting as she squirmed under Rachel for any amount of leverage she could find. The more her sharp shoulder blade bumped against the unforgiving wooden floor, the more pain shot across Quinn's upper back, weakening her to someone who was already stronger. She looked up just as Rachel pinned both of her wrists to the floor to find Rachel staring at her plainly with a hint of irritation tightening her dark eyes. With a flick of her wrist Rachel sent the gun flying from Quinn's slackened grip and skirting across the floor.

The only sound in the entire apartment was Quinn's labored breathing as she lay below Rachel's sure grip on her. She was reluctantly compliant, unable to move a muscle as Rachel's strength pinned her to the floor.

Rachel opened her mouth to speak then shut it soundlessly. Her eyes narrowed into a squint as she leaned closer to stare at the expanse of Quinn's throat. "You have a bruise," Rachel murmured softly as if she hadn't spent the past few minutes fighting for her life and wrestling Quinn to the floor. "Who hurt you?"

Quinn jerked her head to the side, embarrassed to have Rachel see the bruise on her neck. She felt wholly defeated, in her own apartment no less. It quickly bled into agitation that clenched her teeth and tightened her jaw. "Get off me, Berry."

Rachel just continued to stare down at her, dark eyes roving along Quinn's face. "I _will not_ harm you, detective Fabray. You needn't worry."

"And why the hell should I trust you?" Quinn snapped with blazing eyes that glowered up at Rachel.

"There hasn't been a time when I couldn't have killed you," Rachel explained with heaviness lacing her voice that pushed Quinn into the floorboards. Rachel looked guilty and chastened as she quietly said, "I could even kill you right now. But I won't," she quickly rushed out.

"Why?"

"I'm not a murderer."

"If you don't plan on killing me when why. Are. You. _Here_."

Rachel's gaze dropped subconsciously from Quinn's to veer off and stare at wooden floors. Quinn winced as her shoulder began to throb dully, but didn't say anything as Rachel licked her lips then bit her bottom one. "My father and I—we're on the outs right now."

Quinn's eyebrow shot up along her forehead. That was a little unexpected. "Why?"

"That was actually what I came here to talk about." Rachel's lips quirked wryly. "Before you tried to kill me."

Quinn didn't bother to correct her statement as she stared at Rachel expectantly. "Let me up."

"I would say 'promise not to kill me', but you've already told me that your promises mean next to nothing." Rachel's tone carried a chill to it as she released Quinn's wrists. She leaned up on her haunches and stared down at Quinn with apprehension as she brushed her bangs from her eyes.

Quinn's shoulder popped and she winced as she sat up.

"Are you all right?" Rachel whispered. Her breath hitched when Quinn leaned up fully until they were nose to nose.

"Get. The _fuck_. Off of me," Quinn stated calmly.

Rachel scrambled to her feet. She held out a hand for Quinn then eyed her in reproach when Quinn snubbed it to stand up on her own. "You were not this rude to me earlier," Rachel noted.

"That was before one of _your_ kind tried to kill me today."

"Does _your_ kind not commit acts of violence against one another every single day?" Rachel rhetorically asked. "And you don't pass judgement on every human you meet, do you?"

A burning sensation could be felt in her aching shoulder, and Quinn struggled to resist the urge to massage it with her left hand, not wanting to seem weak in front of Rachel. "Have a seat."

Rachel looked startled by the abrupt change in conversation. "Why?"

Quinn sighed. "Because it's been a long day. I'm tired, and _I_ would like to sit down."

Rachel spied a couch to the right and, with her gaze firmly locked on Quinn, she walked toward it and slowly sat down. "Please leave the gun where it is," she requested.

"And if I don't?" Quinn shot back defiantly.

Guilt once again crossed Rachel's features. "I would hate a repeat of what occurred just minutes ago."

To Quinn's astonishment it wasn't a threat, but rather a genuine plea from Rachel. She didn't seem to like throwing her weight around.

Quinn walked to the couch that rested along the wall adjacent to the wall the couch Rachel sat on rested against. She tucked her tired feet under her and leaned heavily against the arm of the couch. She opened her mouth to once again ask why Rachel was paying an unwelcomed visit, when Rachel's soft voice shattered the quiet of the room.

"I really do wish you would like me, detective Fabray." Rachel looked over at Quinn.

"What's wrong—never had anyone dislike you, Berry?" Quinn asked patronizingly.

"No, actually. I have not."

"Well, get used to it. That's what happens in the real world. Some people like you, some don't."

Rachel's thighs pressed tightly together as she sat stiff on the edge of the couch, her hands wringing together. "I suppose so. However, I would appreciate it if you specifically liked me."

Quinn paused for a moment to take in Rachel's nervous posture. "Why?" she finally asked, and Rachel's shoulders immediately shrugged.

"I don't have very many—_any_ friends. And I thought I had finally made one in you."

Quinn laughed dubiously without a hint of humor. "You've got to be kidding me."

Incensed, Rachel's chin lifted. "I find no humor in this situation, detective Fabray."

"I'm going to _retire_ you," Quinn explained needlessly. "Hell, you don't even know my first name, and you think that we're friends? Rachel, come on."

"I've recently been informed that I'm not human, detective," Rachel said quietly. "Everything I've ever known—my memories are quite literally a lie. I have an expiration date looming over my head because you want to kill me." She looked up at Quinn with a watery, beseeching smile. "Allow me to indulge in a few things, will you?"

Quinn inhaled a deep breath and leaned back into the couch. She remained silent as her eyes trained hard on Rachel.

"May I know your first name?" Rachel inquired after a moment.

She hesitated for a moment, biting down on her lip. "Quinn," she finally answered.

"How many friends do you have?" This felt like role-reversal of the first time they had met a few weeks ago. Rachel was the one asking all the questions now.

"Two."

"That's not very many," Rachel concluded, and Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Whatever."

"What are their names?"

Quinn's expression became closed off. "That's classified."

"I see. Perhaps I can be your third friend, and you'll be my first."

The conversation was completely ludicrous, and it unnerved Quinn that she would probably remember this long after Rachel was gone.

"What are your parents like?"

Quinn remained quiet for a long moment. Her lips twisted in thought over the question as she unconsciously leaned back into the couch. "They aren't that great," Quinn finally settled on.

"At least they're real, though, and not some false implanted memory," Rachel grumbled.

Quinn pressed her elbow into the arm of the couch and rested her chin in her hand. "Why are you and LeRoy fighting?"

Rachel gawked at her as if it were obvious. "He's been _lying_ to me for two years!" she cried. "I _still_ don't know what to do with the fact that I'm not human. I don't know what I am, or where I fit in—I doubt I fit in anywhere."

"You're a replicant," Quinn stated, voice much more calm and contained than Rachel's was at the moment. "You're—"

"I know that," Rachel sighed. "I just don't—I don't know…"

Rachel's inability to form an identity for herself oddly put Quinn in the mind of her teenage years where she went from good Christian school girl cheerleader, to sleeping with one of her friends, to this weird punk phase her mother would never let her live down, to sleeping with a girl. At age twenty-one, she still kind of had no idea who she was, but she had put the angst to the side to actually make a living considering she could no longer rely on her parents' money.

Sitting here listening to Rachel's disgruntled rambling was like listening to a less angry with the world version of herself from years ago.

"Make friends with replicants."

Rachel shot Quinn a sharp look. "My brethren do not make the best of friends."

"They lack personality," Quinn agreed.

"I don't," Rachel responded.

Quinn was less readily to agree verbally, though with reluctance she was starting to see more human characteristics inside of Rachel.

"Look," Quinn started, "I'm sure LeRoy meant no harm by lying to you about what you truly are."

"I know he meant no harm," Rachel admitted. "But that doesn't change the fact that he _did_ in fact lie to me about the most important aspect of my life." Her eyes closed as she leaned her head back into the chocolate colored couch. She inhaled the scent of Quinn's apartment deeply. When her eyes opened again, they were troubled as she stared at the ceiling. "I do not wish to be around him right now, that's all."

"So, why did you come here?"

Her head lolled to the side to find Quinn staring at her with intent.

"I just—I need someone honest in my life right now."

Quinn was at least that when it came to Rachel, to a fault most of the time. But this was the first time Rachel wasn't in hysterics with a waterfall of tears streaming down her face, and as long as Quinn could see her gun halfway across the room, she didn't mind lying to herself and thinking that if Rachel tried something sneaky she would be able to retire her right now.

It was the only thing keeping her remotely at ease as a replicant sat in her living room, talking a mile a minute.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

**A/N: **Just wanted to give a quick thank you to everyone who reviews this story! Especially to my anons, I just wanted to let you guys know that I see your reviews, too, and they're appreciated.

* * *

Everything was pitch black around her as Quinn's eyes clenched shut. Sam was prodding around her bruised shoulder for damage and every few pokes had her seeing pain-filled stars behind her eyelids. There was no irreparable damage, just swelling, and hopefully no nerve damage. Nothing a few extra days of taking it easy wouldn't cure. But it was hard to take it easy in her line of work.

She had gone to church today—the first time in over a month. Sometimes she got too busy, and subsequently too tired, for early rise services. But she had spent the weekend twirling the cross necklace that Dr. Berry had been staring at when he prompted her with his instigating question between her fingers, and found herself driving to church at quarter to eight this morning.

Quinn released a shuddery breath as Sam's fingers moved to the less inflamed portion of her shoulder.

"Doesn't hurt here?" he asked, picking up on the tension leaving her body.

"No," Quinn managed.

He nodded behind her, though she couldn't see, and took a step back. "All done." The air around them smelled of Icy Hot, and Sam absentmindedly rubbed the remainder of the cream on his jeans as Quinn pulled her shirt down. "You should be good to go by tomorrow."

Quinn's smile was tentative as she turned around to toss her legs over the side of the bed. Her socked feet landed soundlessly on the floor as Sam sat down beside her. "Thanks, blondie," she teased.

Sam smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He turned towards Quinn, a perplexed expression on his face. "Who's Rachel?"

Quinn exhaled slowly. She knew he had been sitting on the question all weekend, but didn't think he would ever work up the courage to ask her. "Just some girl I met—nobody, really."

"You like her?"

"No."

Sam's sigh rattled his whole body. Disappointment showed clearly in his voice as he asked, "So, you can tell Puck about her, but you can't tell me?"

"Sam—"

"I mean, I hadn't even heard about this girl until a couple of days ago during dinner when it slipped out." His eyebrows knitted in irritation. "Were you even going to tell me?"

Quinn bit down on her lower lip as she contemplated the question.

Sam responded before she could. "You and Puck are closer than you and I are."

Affronted, Quinn finally seemed to find her voice. "That's _not_ true," she defended.

"It _is_," Sam insisted. "The two of you have been closer since…you know."

The _you know_ in question was the moment Puck and Quinn had slept together. There had been a subtle shift in the dynamic of their three person friendship ever since that Quinn didn't want to admit to herself, and Puck had never taken the time to notice. But that seemed to always be the case in which there was one girl in a friendship with two boys, dynamics would always shift because whether the boys would openly admit it or not, they both staked claim on the girl. And the feminist in Quinn worked hard to squash Puck and Sam's pissing contests whenever they presented themselves. To this day she asked herself why she had chose to be friends with those two instead of the twin girls down the street from her house who lived with their lesbian mother, and—oh. She remembered now. Her parents didn't let her.

"Yeah, things changed, because you stopped looking at me as a friend and started looking at me as someone you wanted to fuck," Quinn stated plainly.

Sam's eyes grew large. "_No_. No, things changed because you and Puck got closer, because you slept together, and—"

"Enough!" Quinn shouted. It was an old argument that had presented itself in many different ways over the last five years. "It wasn't even…_good_," she explained. She watched Sam's shoulders slumped and sighed. "Sam, look, it wasn't like—I—"

"You slept with Puck because you didn't want me. It was fucked up, Q."

Quinn threw her hands up in frustration. "Yes—okay? It was fucked up. But you know what? We were _children_, Sam. It wasn't about you; it was about my parents, and me wanting to get back at them for trying to control my life. I _used_ Puck," Quinn emphasized. "He could handle it because all he really cared about was sex." Her entire face twitched with tension as her eyes blazed into Sam's. "Can we move past it, please?" All she could think about now was Dr. Berry suggesting she was an android, cold and unfeeling—that was what she had felt like when she had slept with Puck. He was a means to an end, a logical choice in her head at the time to get her parents off her back. There was nothing flowery about it, and Quinn now sat on her bed and vaguely wondered if she was capable of feeling at all.

She had had a boyfriend in high school who had once asked her if she was capable of feeling anything. And her super smart, valedictorian ex-girlfriend in private _loved_ to psycho analyze her all day long.

And to this day she kind of didn't know if she could feel. Whatever.

Sam's lips twisted up as they always did when he was feeling particularly chastened. "All I wanna do is be close to you again, Quinn. You're the one who's making it difficult."

"We hang out all the time, Sam." She felt tired and heavy suddenly and wanted him to leave.

"I ask you who that girl is and you brush it off when it's obvious that there's more to her than 'just some girl you met'. If she was 'just some girl' then Puck wouldn't have asked if she had visited you _again_, which implies that she's visited you at least once before already." When Quinn didn't respond, his expression turned smug. "Just tell me who she is. Why can't I know?"

Quinn ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, and sighed. "Because it's classified, and has to do with my job—that's why Puck knows and you don't."

Sam nodded once in understanding. "So—what, she's like, a witness, or something?"

"Or something."

His lips quirked upward. "So, you're not into her?"

Quinn rolled her eyes. "I've already answered that question."

"So, if I showed up to your apartment tomorrow tonight with flowers, you'll go out with me?"

Her eyes squinted as she wondered how someone so dense had managed to become a competent intern. Quinn stood from the bed to place her hands on her hips as she looked down at Sam. Her voice was sickeningly sweet as she said to him, "I'm only going to say this one more time, do you understand?"

With a thick swallow, Sam nodded his head.

Quinn braced her hands on his shoulders. "Samuel," she stated sternly. "I'm not going to date you. Ever."

"Is it because I'm not a fuck up?"

Her jaw clenched. "It's because we're best friends. Look, this is how your life is going to work. You're going to become a successful doctor and meet an equally successful surgeon whom you're going to marry. Puck's going to be your best man and you'll make your future fiancée make me her maid of honor, because I won't settle for a bridesmaid roll." He chuckled quietly, and Quinn smiled. "You'll have platinum blonde children, and live happily ever after."

"And I can't have platinum blonde children with you, because?"

Quinn arched an eyebrow. "Besides the fact that I'm technically no longer blonde?"

Sam sighed. "It's because I'm too normal for you."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

He reached up to pat the hand on his shoulder in placation. "Face it, Q, you don't want what comes easy to you. You like to suffer in just about every aspect of your life, love included." Quinn pulled back and stood straight to glare down at him, and Sam smirked. "You're like, an artist, or something. You can't love without a little suffering, and since you won't suffer with me, you don't want me."

"Whatever you have to tell yourself to better accept this rejection," Quinn shot back with narrowed eyes.

Sam stood to his full height, and Quinn's eyes rose to keep him in her line of sight. "I should probably go—early day tomorrow." He made to move around her then paused. "We should hang out soon, just the two of us. Not like, a _date_ or anything, but…pizza, movies?"

"After the times I've had at work some normalcy would be good," Quinn agreed. "I'll walk you out."

They walked through the dark, narrow hallway into the dimly lit living room. Quinn held the door open and watched Sam disappear behind the elevator doors. She closed her door once he was gone and rested heavily back against it with a long exhale, wondering when, why and how she had become as fucked up as he had described. Though, Sam would never call it fucked up; he would just call it _being Quinn_.

Which possibly made it even more fucked up.

* * *

Quinn was perplexed when she walked into the precinct and Puck's black eye was the first thing she saw. Then, she was slightly amused. "What happened to you?"

"Mercedes has a mean right hook. Kinda hot, though, not gonna lie," he admitted.

"So, you interviewed her?"

Puck tipped his head in the direction of his office, and Quinn followed behind. His office was pretty juvenile, with a miniature basketball hoop attached to the wall above the trashcan. Though his office was less broody than Quinn's was. His overhead light was almost always on, unlike Quinn's, and he typically kept the blinds open. Quinn sat in front of Puck's desk as he sat behind it. "This is awesome, right? I feel like one of those uppity business execs."

Quinn shook her head with a quiet chuckle. "Just get to the point, Puck."

Puck clasped his hands together on his desk to appear business-like. "She won't talk much. She won't tell where the others are. But we put out a picture of her in the newspaper, and a witness came forward to say that Mercedes and three other guys—replicants—have been staying at this hotel on Carson street."

"Has this witness provided sketches of the others?"

Puck shook his head. "She said she doesn't try to make eye contact because she knows their replicants, so she just keeps her head low and goes about life."

"How have the replicants been paying for the hotel room?" Quinn asked next, and Puck shrugged.

"Mercedes didn't say. You think they're scaring hotel managers into putting them up for a few days and keeping it quiet?"

"Kurt said he paid Blaine enough money for a hotel room," Quinn mused. "But it's possible that four replicants could scare a hotel manager into giving them a free room. Seems like everyone is so hush-hush about it, though."

"Not everyone. We've got two people admitting to seeing a replicant. We just need to ask around more."

"I think we should make a trip to that hotel," Quinn muttered.

Puck leaned back in his eat with a grin. "That'd be fun."

Quinn ran her fingers through her hair and leaned back in her seat. She eyed the bruise around Puck's eye and became even more impatient to finally get this case over with. "Did Mercedes express emotions at all?"

Puck's eyes grew wide at the question. "Yeah, anger."

Quinn stood abruptly. "I'm going to talk to her."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Puck told her as he followed her out of his office.

"Why not?"

"Because you always end up bruised when you mess with those things."

"Yeah, so do you."

"Touché," he mumbled.

"I just want to see her…emotions," Quinn responded.

Quinn walked into the interrogation room despite Puck's protests to find Mercedes walking from one end of the room to the other, pacing. She looked deep in thought and didn't even acknowledge Quinn when she walked in. Her hands were pulled behind her back with handcuffs hindering movement of her arms, and Quinn guessed someone wised up after Mercedes punched Puck in the eye.

Quinn felt for her gun in the waistband of her jeans. "I'm going to retire you," she stated calmly, gauging Mercedes' reaction.

Mercedes look over at her with haunted eyes and just told her, "Then do it."

It had been coached into Quinn from the very beginning not to take work home with her, not to take any part of her job to heart. But as she looked at the defeated, almost relieved expression on Mercedes' face before firing her gun, she knew that this was something she would never forget.

Having something the equivalent of an unfeeling toaster oven look at you with relief in its eyes…well, it was something that would be unforgettable.

* * *

To Quinn's utter astonishment Rachel wasn't on her doorstep when she came home. Without thought, Quinn raised her left wrist to check the time on her watch to that, yes, this was in fact when she normally got home. Quinn ignored Rachel's lack of presence, and sauntered up to her door to open it. She closed the door behind her and flicked on the light on the table beside the couch.

It felt odd to have the house to herself once more after work, but wholly needed as Quinn lied back on the couch, slinging an arm across her forehead as her eyes closed.

There was a series of knocks on the door that made Quinn pop up from her lying position on the couch. She blinked her bleary eyes to find that she had fallen asleep. Standing up, she practically stumbled on groggy legs to the door, half-wondering if it was Rachel, which exasperated her already. She rose to the tips of her toes to stare out of the peephole. It was Puck, standing on her doorstep with one hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans and the other holding two boxes of pizza and what looked to be a small serving of wings. Relief washed over Quinn as she lowered to land evenly on her feet and open the door.

Puck grinned. "This is normally how flicks start."

Quinn scoffed and grabbed the food from his arms. "Unfortunately for you, you're not my type."

Puck closed the door behind him and followed her into the kitchen. "Fortunately for you, you're mine."

Quinn walked to the corner of the kitchen to place the pizza on the table. She looked up to find Puck looking down with a confused frown. "What?" she asked.

Puck traced over the indentation in her table, fingers touching the pointed, splinted wood. "What the hell happened?"

Quinn looked down at her once new and pristine table with a frown. "Rachel happened," she muttered and turned away.

"What do you mean, she happened?" Puck turned to face her and Quinn spun around from the counter across the room to face Puck.

"She got angry and punched the table." Which weirdly amused Quinn to reflect back on considering how…docile Rachel was the vast majority of the time. "I thought I told you that."

Puck glanced down at the table then back to Quinn. "Are you sure she's never put her hands on you, Q?"

"She hasn't," Quinn answered with automatically, ignoring several days ago when Rachel effortlessly pinned her to the floor to keep from being retired. She really didn't want to fight about this right now. "She's…harmless."

"A harmless replicant?" Puck asked.

"She sat on my couch the other day and talked my head off," Quinn deadpanned. "Yeah, I'd say she's harmless."

For some reason Puck laughed with a shake of his head. "Only you, Quinn, only you would make friends with some crazy replicant."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "It's not like she gave me a choice."

"She's really never tried to kill you?"

"Not once," Quinn admitted. "Weird, I know."

Puck was quiet, studying her for a moment. "Do you think she's a pleasure model?"

"Shut up, Puck." She turned back to the cabinets to grab some plates when someone knocked on her door.

"Ms. Popular tonight," Puck teased as Quinn spun around with a confused frown.

"It better not be my landlord," Quinn grumbled as she walked to the door.

She opened the door to find Rachel standing there in a pair of heels and a trench coat. An eyebrow rose along Quinn's forehead as she hoped Rachel was wearing something more than that. "I hope you're wearing something more than that."

Rachel's smile was shy and nervous as she fretted with her damp hair. "I just got off work. And it's raining really hard outside," she responded, explaining the need for her coat, and her shoes.

"I should have known you'd show up sooner or later."

"You were hoping I'd visit?" Rachel's smile turned hopeful almost immediately.

"No."

"Hey—Q, who's at the door?"

Quinn stiffened, having forgotten that Puck was in the kitchen. She looked back at Rachel to find a frown marring her face. "You have someone over," Rachel murmured.

"A friend of mine," Quinn supplied, not really knowing why she had just explained herself.

"Oh." Rachel's face fell completely, and Quinn wondered if the girl had a handle on her own facial expressions. Rachel's lips quirked into a wry smile. "One of the two, huh? Well, I apologize for intrud—"

"Quinn, what the hell's taking so long?"

Rachel's eyes veered to the left and Quinn turned around to find Puck walking toward them. His eyes widened like a kid in a candy store at the sight of Rachel as he approached them. "Quinn, who's your friend?"

Rachel beamed at being called Quinn's friend.

"This is—"

"I'm Noah Puckerman," Puck stated, cutting Quinn off. He reached out a hand, and Rachel stared at him for a moment before placing her hand in his. Puck smiled lopsidedly and placed a kiss on the back of Rachel's hand. "Ladies call me Puck."

"Noah," Rachel greeted, to Quinn's slight amusement. "It's a pleasure to meet one of Quinn's friends. I'm Rachel Berry."

Quinn watched slow recognition flicker in Puck's eyes. His jaw tightened as his gaze floated to Quinn then back to Rachel again. "You should come inside."

Quinn's lips pursed in confusion at Puck's unexpected response. Rachel looked from Puck to Quinn, then nodded. "I'd love to, as long as I'm not intruding."

Puck grinned and stepped aside to allow her entry. "Nonsense, babe."

Rachel's steps were full of hesitation as she walked into Quinn's apartment. Quinn shot Puck a glare of confusion and irritation as she closed the door behind them. Puck walked forward through the house. "We were just in the kitchen about to eat pizza and chicken wings."

Rachel's gaze once again washed over Quinn's living room as she silently followed Puck. She hadn't been in the kitchen in a while and froze when her eyes landed on the table across the room, the indentation of her fist still there.

Quinn brushed past her, knowing what Rachel was staring at, but offering no words of encouragement to make her more comfortable.

"Got some punch, I heard," Puck spoke into the silence with an impressed smirk on his face. He seemed to be at ease with Rachel, which Quinn could not for the life of her comprehend.

At his words, Rachel stepped further into the room. She stood hovering over the corner of the table as her fingers ghosted over the splintered wood. Her hair wipped over one shoulder as she turned around to face Quinn. "I really am sorry for this," she whispered. "I was—that's never happened to me before."

She looked genuinely ashamed, to which Quinn just sighed and grabbed three plates from the cabinet, because dealing with replicants that had genuine emotions and not those on and off switch predecessors of Rachel was just plain confusing and more than Quinn bargained for. Yet threatening to shoot Rachel at point blank range didn't seem to scare her off, and Quinn didn't really know what to do anymore. This was strictly a fly by the seat of her pants zone, and Quinn hated it.

"Do you eat?" Quinn asked after a moment, honestly curious. She had never encountered a replicant in a domestic setting in which sitting down to dinner would apply.

Rachel glanced away from the table to Quinn. She eyed the plates in Quinn's hand, then met her eyes. "Strictly for pleasure—I've recently learned that I'm capable of surviving without food."

Quinn tilted her head in curiosity, but Puck spoke first as he opened the two boxes of pizza resting on the table and turned them toward Rachel. "Pepperoni or cheese? We've got chicken wings, too."

"I don't eat animals," Rachel mumbled absentmindedly as she stared at the pizza, and Quinn shot Puck a bemused look.

"Why?" Quinn couldn't help but ask.

Rachel turned to her. "It just seems…inhumane."

Quinn's jaw tightened as Rachel turned back to survey the pizza. A replicant with a conscience? Quinn sighed. She walked forward to thrust a plate into Rachel's hands. "Eat the pizza then, though I should warn you that they contain ingredients that are byproducts of animals. And please try not to judge us too harshly when we sink our teeth into these wings."

As if on cue, Puck grabbed one and shoved the whole chicken wing into his mouth. Rachel watched with a head tilt as he chewed it around for a few seconds before producing a cleaned bone from his mouth. Her eyes widened and she did something that made Quinn stiffen completely—she giggled.

Puck smiled smugly and plopped down on the seat behind him once Quinn handed him a plate. "That's not all this mouth can do," he promised Rachel with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Quinn was beyond exasperated by the time all three of them sat down and began to eat. Rachel had chosen a cheese pizza—which she had eagerly informed everyone was her first slice ever. Puck was predictably shocked, though Quinn was less so; she was beginning to suspect that Rachel had lived a sheltered two and a half years.

"So, are you a pleasure model?" Puck asked after his third slice of pizza when Quinn and Rachel were just finishing their firsts.

Quinn had been in the process of biting her last piece of crust, when she straightened completely to glare at Puck. This had been his angle all along, the reason he was suddenly so comfortable with having Rachel around. Quinn barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Rachel stiffened to look visibly uncomfortable as her eyes dropped to the crust on her plate. Soft curls had fallen out of her hair due to the rain, and her hair clung to her neck and around her shoulders, bangs looking frayed yet somehow still appealing on her forehead. "I would much prefer to not talk about that," she said quietly.

Taken aback, Puck leaned back in his seat and shot Quinn a very confused _what'd I say?_ look.

Quinn cleared her throat and went in for a second slice of pizza. "Do you want another one, Rachel?" She knew awkward dinner conversation when she saw it, having had enough of it when she was growing up, and there was no way in hell she would let it happen in her own apartment.

Rachel raised her head with a grateful smile that she beamed at Quinn. "I would—thank you." She grabbed hold of a slice of pizza offered to her, and Quinn eyed her curiously.

It wasn't proper dinner conversation and her parents would probably have had her beheaded if they knew the question she was about to ask while everyone was eating dinner. "Does your body dispose of…waste?" Quinn asked lowly as if half-way across town her parents could hear.

Puzzlement gripped Rachel and tilted her head, furrowing her brow. "Waste?"

"She means, do you piss and shit?" Puck supplied around an entire bird wing in his mouth.

Rachel's face balled up at his choice of wording as understanding dawned on her. She turned to Quinn and shook her head. "I do not, no. I have no use for such…actions. If and when I eat my body utilizes all aspects of what I consume—there is no waste."

"Aren't you eco-friendly?" Quinn found herself teasing without missing a beat.

To her surprise, Rachel smiled in amusement as she conceded with, "We are in the twenty-first century, Quinn. I think it's high time we start saving the world instead of injuring it, wouldn't you agree?"

Quinn groaned. "You sound like an infomercial."

"So, what do you do all day, Rachel?" Puck asked in an attempt to be included in the conversation. Quinn shot him a sharp look for what he was obviously trying to do, and for some reason she disapproved. The last thing Rachel needed was to be getting mixed up in Puck when she was already confused about her own identity. Though when Quinn suddenly became an expert on what Rachel did and didn't need, she didn't know. Her jaw worked back and forth as she tried her hardest not to butt in, because this was Rachel's…for lack of a better term: _life_, and she could do what she wanted with it. While she still had one.

"I help create replicants," Rachel replied. "Everyone has their own job, within and outside of the corporation. I ensure that their mannerisms are as 'human' as possible before they are to be shipped off into space."

A replicant teaching other replicants how to be human. This got weirder and weirder.

"But your job is over now, right?" Puck asked, switching from a wannabe suitor to blade runner in an instant.

"For now."

"Forever," Quinn cut in. "You guys aren't allowed to make any more replicants, and if we find out that you are, then we're hauling all of you into jail."

"I suppose that doesn't matter in my case, does it?" Rachel shot back. "Considering I'll be dead soon."

Quinn's eyes narrowed at her audacity, but she chose not to comment.

"Okay," Puck drawled in the deafening silence. His gaze flicked to the clock above the sink that ticked just a little too loudly, and he stretched in his seat. "Anyway, I gotta go. Gotta get some sleep before work tomorrow."

"Grab your plate," Quinn intoned authoritatively when he just left it sitting on the table. With a huff, he reached back to grab it and emptied it in the trashcan before tossing it in the sink. Quinn stood, and Rachel felt the need to stand as well. "I'll walk you out."

Puck saddled up beside Rachel as Quinn turned away from the table to empty her own plate. "Want to come home with me, Ms. Berry?"

Quinn practically gagged as she deposited her dish in the sink.

Rachel's gaze strayed to Quinn, then back to Puck. "Actually, I would like to stay here with Quinn."

"But I'm so much more fun," Puck insisted with a lustful glint in his eye.

Quinn turned around and leaned back against the sink with her arms folded. She watched the way Rachel smiled indulgently at Puck and pried her hand from his. "I would much prefer to stay here. Thank you for the offer, though, Noah."

Puck angled his head toward Quinn, and she had a smug smirk on her face; he wasn't turned down often, and she relished this moment.

"Fine, fine," he conceded, stepping away. He shot Quinn a dry look and walked out of the kitchen, grumbling, "I'll let myself out."

The door shut, putting Quinn on hyper alert that she was once again alone in her apartment with a replicant that apparently was 'not a murder.' As if she could actually trust that.

"How long have you been friends with Noah?" Rachel asked as she leaned back against the table, incidentally on the indentation she had created in it.

Quinn held her post by the kitchen sink with her arms folded across her chest. "Since we were children."

"I can't imagine you as a child, Quinn," Rachel admitted with a giggle.

Quinn rolled her eyes. "I liked it better when you referred to me as detective Fabray."

Rachel's eyes actually twinkled playfully as she said, "That's too bad, because I really like your name."

Quinn remained silent for a long moment as she studied Rachel. Finally, she asked, "Why didn't you leave with Puck?"

"I-I'm sorry?" Rachel stammered.

"You heard me," Quinn accused. "Why didn't you go home with him?"

"I am not interested in him," Rachel stated plainly. "Nor do I know him. I do not mean to offend as Noah is your friend, but he's…forward and abrasive—"

Quinn's laugh cut her off. "You don't have to explain those things to me. He _is_ all of those things."

"The two of you are nearly polar opposites. Though, you are abrasive in your own way, but not nearly as forward," Rachel mused.

Quinn pushed off the sink with a glare in Rachel's direction. "Tell me how you really feel," she replied dryly as she walked out of the kitchen.

Rachel followed behind, stopping at the threshold and looking down the dark hallway opposite of where Quinn was going. "Is your bedroom back there?" Rachel asked curiously as she followed Quinn into the living room.

Quinn nodded as she rested on the couch. Rachel sat on the other one in a redo of several nights ago, and Quinn wondered if this, too, was going to become a pattern.

"What's it look like?"

"Very bland," Quinn admitted indolently.

Rachel rested her chin in her hands and leaned against the arm of the couch. "My room is very colorful. My father teases me and says I'm a child."

The corner of Quinn's mouth twitched. "You kind of are."

"I am not," Rachel argued. "I come and go around town as I please—"

"Recently."

Rachel ignored that tidbit from Quinn. "I have a job. I have a friend."

"You're two years old."

"And a _half_. Besides, physically, I'm an adult, and mentally, I'm an adult."

It was kind of humorous, watching Rachel get all riled up over her age, like a child. Except, she was right, in a sense. Physically she was an adult, as well as mentally—she was capable of adult concepts, verbose, had an age appropriate vocabulary. But every once in a while she would ask Quinn questions like _what's your bedroom look like?_ and instead of it being flirty innuendo, it was a genuine question asked with wide eyes and child-like curiosity.

"Have you ever been skating?"

Quinn shook out of her thoughts to find Rachel staring expectantly at her. "I'm sorry?"

"I researched what humans do for recreational enjoyment and skating—particularly ice skating—looked quite enjoyable."

"Ice skating's a lot of fun," Quinn mumbled, thrown back into her childhood without her consent.

"We should go sometime," Rachel concluded, logically.

"What is this, some kind of bucket list?"

Rachel's expression turned quizzical. "I'm not familiar with that term."

Quinn waved it off. "Never mind. And, I don't…really know about this."

"But we're friends," Rachel murmured. Her bottom lip jutted out instantaneously, and Quinn stared, flabbergasted, at the pout elongating her face and widening her dark eyes until they caught the light overhead and shimmered. "Friends hang out."

She looked like a doll, and objectively, Quinn could admit with reluctance in the private crevices of her own mind that she had never seen a replicant as pretty as Rachel. She wondered just how long LeRoy had spent on her, and whether he modeled her after someone.

Rachel's words reminded Quinn a lot about Sam and his whining from yesterday.

Quinn gripped the arm of her chair and stood swiftly. "I'm tired." She gazed at Rachel pointedly until Rachel stood from the couch. She briefly caught sight of Rachel's outfit as Rachel pulled the ends of her trench coat together and tied her belt, and it occurred to Quinn that her manners had largely failed her. She had never taken Rachel's coat when she walked in.

"I hope you have a wonderful night, Quinn," Rachel said as she walked out of the apartment. She spun around as soon as she was out of the door to gaze up at Quinn with murky brown eyes the same color as Quinn's couch.

"You, too," Quinn mumbled, because it was the polite thing to do.

But Rachel's face lit up nonetheless. "I hope to see you again soon, Quinn. You're an intriguing person."

When Quinn didn't offer up a response, Rachel just smiled once more before backing up and turning to hurry toward the elevator. Once she was out of sight, Quinn closed the door. She leaned back against it and breathed a sigh of relief for the fact that she was still alive.

* * *

"What did you and my future mistress do last night?"

Quinn ignored the majority of Puck's question and took a sip of her coffee. "Talked."

"About me?"

Her eyes scrunched up in the telltale sign that she was gaining pleasure at another's expense. "If that floats your sinking boat."

Puck scowled. "She likes you," he begrudgingly admitted. "Don't know why, though. You keep threatening to retire her. This is like, some Stockholm Syndrome shit."

Quinn shifted uncomfortably. "Except, I haven't taken her hostage. If anything, she's taken my _life_ hostage by showing up at my apartment all the time."

"I'm so coming over more often."

"Don't."

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation, and Quinn shot Puck a sharp look to get him to shut up as Sue walked into her office. Sue looked from Puck to Quinn, then back again. "I want the two of you in my office."

Her voice sounded gravely serious and the both stood to follow Sue into her own office. Quinn sat down beside Santana and Puck sat on her other side as Sue sat behind her desk. She eyed the both of them, particularly Quinn, in suspicion before she said, "I've received news that there's an active replicant at Schuester's Corporation." Her eyes landed heavily on Quinn. "Did you know about this?"

"Yes," Quinn answered, though she wanted nothing more than to lie.

"And you didn't say anything?" Sue continued in that deathly serious low tone of voice.

Puck shifted in his seat to come to Quinn's defense. "Uh, well, Q had approached me about it as a partner. And I suggested to just ignore the issue for now because Rachel didn't even know she was a replicant."

At the name 'Rachel', Santana perked up in her seat to turn to Quinn. "You mean that chick that Puckhead said visits you?"

Quinn's hands clenched on the arm of her chair in suppressed anger at Santana, and Puck for constantly dropping Rachel's name into every given situation. She kept her gaze locked on Sue whom looked two seconds away from bursting.

"No one told me about her," Santana continued to grumble. "That's cool."

"It's not like that," Quinn gritted out. _Not like what_? She wasn't sure what she was defending, but felt defensive at the moment.

"No, it's fine. If you get cheap thrills from harboring a skin-job—"

"You don't know what you're talking about, so shut up!"

"Quinn," Sue cut in. "What are you doing?"

Her thoughts were racing a mile a minute for an excuse to save her own ass, when she blurted out, "I'm getting intel—seeing if she knows why the other replicants are here."

Sue leaned back in her seat and assessed Quinn for any chinks in her armor. "You always were a good liar, Q."

"I'm not lying."

"Well, I wouldn't know, because of how good of a liar you are, would I?" Sue shrugged. "Has she given you anything yet?"

"No," Quinn mumbled, leaning back in her seat once it seemed like the heat was off her. "All I know so far is that she helped build replicants, and that they aren't building any more as of late." She was using information that Puck had fished out of Rachel during a friendly conversation, but Quinn's ass was on the line right now and she was willing to compromise her loosely termed friendship with Rachel to save it.

"I see," was Sue's enigmatic reply. It was all she had to say before she kicked them all out and told them to do something productive with the hours she was paying them for.

On their way out another officer rushed in, a stout older man with glasses and thinning hair at the top of his head.

"The expression is _excuse_ _me_," Santana growled as the man handed Sue a manila envelope.

"You three wait right there," Sue replied distractedly. "You." She looked up at the man. "Leave."

He scurried out of her office with an _excuse me_ this time when Santana glared him down. Sue opened the envelope to find a small stack of papers inside. Her eyebrows knitted together in horror as she read over it. "This just in, boys and girls, we have a strangling on our hands."

Santana hurried into the office, eager to work on something exciting for a change. "Who's dead?"

"He _works_ for Shuester Corp, and is in critical condition," Sue muttered with a glare in Santana's direction before she continued to read the file.

Curiosity swirled in Quinn's mind as she took two steps back into the office. "What's his name?"

"Hiram." Sue's eyes glanced over the first page of information before she switched to the next. "Hiram Berry."


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

**A/N 1:** To the anon who reviewed last chapter and commented on the dynamic and characterizations of Quinn and Rachel reflecting canon: thank you so much! I've tried to be conscious of their dynamic on the show (Rachel being an outcast and Quinn wanting nothing to do with her) and tried to reflect that in this fic so things could feel familiar to the readers, especially those who haven't seen _Blade Runner_, so I'm thrilled that it's coming across, thank you.

**A/N 2: **This chapter was about to be long as hell, but I decided today to break it into two parts because I tend to lose interest in writing longer chapters and it would have probs taken me forever to finish this chapter if I didn't break it up. So I hope you all enjoy this, and thank you always for your reviews.

Haven't had a chance to proofread because it's late and I'm sleepy, so please pretend any and all SPAG errors don't exist.

* * *

LeRoy looked visibly shaken as Quinn stood in front of him with a pen and pad, discreetly assessing his body language. His arms were folded tightly across his chest, his square jaw tense as he stared through Quinn with red-rimmed eyes. He had just ordered Ms. Corcoran away who had chased Quinn into his office, worried that she would be in trouble. LeRoy rubbed at his eyebrows as he glanced away from Quinn. "I don't know what you want me to say…"

"Whatever you know," Quinn responded. "For starters, what is Hiram's job within the corporation?"

"All he does is design eyes," Leroy whispered. "There is literally _nothing_ about his job that would warrant an attack like that."

"Has he been able to describe his assailant?"

"He's in a _coma_," LeRoy spat acidly.

Quinn inhaled a sharp breath to stop her knee-jerk reaction of flying on the defensive. It was always a possibility in her line of work that emotional people—or replicants for that matter—could lash out. Her gut reaction was to retaliate, but she had been through enough training to know that the best she could do in this conversation was maintain a calm tone of voice and understanding attitude.

Her interest in LeRoy piqued, however, by his reaction. He was an emotional wreck over someone who Quinn had initially assumed was nothing more than an employee. She schooled her features to remain impassive as she asked the obvious question. "Is your shared last name with Hiram a coincidence…or something more?"

LeRoy's lips pressed into a thin line. He sighed heavily and turned away from Quinn to walk further into his office. It was very clinical, neat without a single paper out of place, and LeRoy walked behind his desk to recline back into his several hundred dollar cushioned faux-leather seat. His eyes pinched together to pronounce his age with crow's feet crinkling just above his cheek. He ran a hand over his hair before bracing his arms on his desk. "Hiram is my husband," he whispered. "We're separated, but he's still my husband."

His words compelled Quinn to carefully seat herself in the chair in front of his desk. Her brow furrowed in confusion—she had never known LeRoy enough to learn something as intimate as his sexuality and to not only find out he was gay, but was also married to another Schuester Corp employee who was recently strangled into a coma was overwhelming.

"The split is…somewhat recent," LeRoy muttered. "Over two years."

The number tugged on the memories in her mind almost instantly. When her eyes widened LeRoy nodded somberly.

"We fought over Rachel. He never wanted her, but went along with it to make me happy." He sighed. "Everything was going well. We had planned out what she would look like, what memories she would have—it was like we were making our own baby, you know?"

"I'm sorry, but I absolutely cannot relate to this and won't pretend otherwise," Quinn admitted in a breath. It felt like someone had knocked the wind out of her, listening to LeRoy speak about how he had created Rachel as if she was an actual person.

LeRoy shrugged a shoulder, too lost in his own thoughts to care. "We had finally constructed her. He gave her the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. They're so warm and inviting." He smiled fondly, and Quinn could tell that somehow, someway LeRoy truly did love Rachel—a replicant. Quinn couldn't really compartmentalize it, but reasoned it was the same as loving a dog, or some other pet that was different from humans, but equally, and sometimes even more so, loveable.

"We had discussed—fought over how to raise her. I wanted to raise her between our house and the corporation because she _was_ a replicant no matter how much I wanted her to be human. Hiram disagreed, and said that if I wanted her to be human then I would have to treat her as such, and allow her to explore the world." His wistful gaze landed on Quinn and hardened. "But I knew there were people like you out there who would try to kill her."

Quinn didn't bother to remind LeRoy that it was her job.

"Then…another complication arose," LeRoy replied vaguely, "and that was the final straw for Hiram. He said he didn't want to get attached to her, only to have to lose her in the end. He moved out to keep from becoming attached to her, we split, and we haven't been on the best terms since."

"What is Rachel's relationship with Hiram?" Quinn asked after a moment. Sue had said a replicant had strangled Hiram, and it was Quinn's job to objectively look at all of them.

"Nonexistent." LeRoy glanced at Quinn to see her eying him critically and stiffened. "I hope you aren't suggesting what I think you are."

"I haven't suggested a thing," Quinn replied coolly. "I asked a question."

"Rachel didn't do it," LeRoy replied adamantly. "She doesn't even know him."

Quinn bit her lip, hesitating before she finally spoke. "You said yourself that she's been strolling around town lately. It's possible—"

"It is not possible!" LeRoy insisted. His nostrils flared in agitation as his jaw twitched. After a moment he deflated back in his seat with a quiet exhale. "Detective Fabray, I'd like for you to leave now."

"Just one more question," Quinn asserted. "Where is Rachel now?"

"I don't know," LeRoy gritted out in frustration. "She comes and goes whenever she pleases in some fit of rebellion ever since _you_ informed her she was a replicant. Then she comes home asking questions—these were the things I've been trying to avoid!"

"You knew it would happen someday!" Quinn accused, unrepentant.

LeRoy was slow to agree. "Perhaps," he muttered after a moment. "But you're not the one who has to watch the youthful innocence on her face slowly chip away with every question I answer about her very existence." He turned away from her then. "I'd like for you to leave."

Quinn flipped her notepad closed and tucked it anyway in the pocket of her coat along with her pen. There was nothing more she would get from LeRoy and she already felt like she had an ear full. "Thank you for your time," she murmured as she stood from her seat. "For what it's worth I hope Hiram makes a full recovery."

LeRoy didn't even glance up, and Quinn took that as her cue to leave.

She mashed the down button on the elevator as her phone began to buzz in her pocket. Quinn fished it out and stepped into the elevator.

"Yeah, Puck?" she answered.

"You sound worse for wear," Puck responded.

Quinn switched the phone to her other ear to press the ground floor button. "I just got my ass chewed for asking routine questions," she replied dryly.

"Berry was that upset about Hiram?"

"Apparently they're—" she stopped and glanced around the corners of the elevator, knowing there were cameras all around. "Did you need something?" she asked instead.

"Uh, yeah…listen…"

When he didn't continue, Quinn huffed out an annoyed breath as she walked out of the elevator. "Puck, whatever it is, it can probably wait until I get back to the precinct."

"Well, I don't think she has a choice."

Quinn stopped in the middle of the parking deck. "Who?"

"Rachel."

"What _about_ her?"

"She's _here_. At the precinct. Sue ordered her to be picked up from off the streets and put her in lockup."

* * *

She didn't even know why she was angry, and didn't want to think about it. But she was _livid_. Her car door slammed behind her as Quinn walked toward the building. The overcast above dampened the color of the blade runner station that foisted itself onto the sidewalk and into passersby lives, and Quinn swung open the glass door until the metal frame grated against the brick wall of the building. She stormed inside to find everyone staring at her.

"What?" she barked.

No one said anything, and a few continued to stare in silence as most went back to work. Quinn stalked toward the very back of the building where the holding cells were when Puck intercepted her. "Whoa, easy."

"Why is she here?" Quinn gritted out.

Puck held his hands up and shook his head. "I don't know. Sue ordered Santana to bring her in, and she's been here crying for you for over an hour."

"Why didn't you call me?"

The lines of her body were drawn taut with anger, and Puck tried his best to calm her down by talking at a slower pace. "You were working the case," he rationalized. "Getting information is more important than—"

Quinn walked past him.

She turned the corner to the row of holding cells, six that sat side by side along a tiled wall. Santana was leaning back against the wall opposite the cells with a self-satisfying smirk on her face. Quinn rounded on her. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Quinn?" Rachel's voice was shrill and distressed as she practically threw herself toward the front of the cell, gripping the bars for dear life. "Quinn, is that you? Quinn, please," she whimpered.

Quinn's jaw clenched at the pathetic sound of Rachel's voice.

"I'm doing my _job_, something you should consider doing," Santana responded snidely.

"You're interrupting _my_ job," Quinn growled. "I explained everything to Sue yesterday—"

"And she didn't buy your pathetic sob story. So, I picked the skin-job up and put her here _where she'll stay_."

"Please, Quinn," Rachel pleaded. "I don't even—where am I?"

Santana lips curled into a knowing sneer as Quinn flinched at the sound of Rachel's voice. Quinn stood there for a moment longer, but reluctantly walked away from her verbal spar with Santana toward Rachel who was glued to the bars of the third cell, wild eyes stricken with fear beseeching Quinn nearer. "Where am I?"

"You're at the blade runner precinct, in a holding cell," Quinn explained.

If it were possible Rachel's eyes grew wider in fear, welling with tears. "Are they going to kill me?" she whispered.

Quinn glanced away from her to the tiled walls of the cell behind Rachel.

"She keeps yelling at me," Rachel continued. "Can you just—can we go to your apartment?" she whispered softly. "Please, Quinn."

Quinn sighed heavily and wrapped her hands around the bars, too tired, shoulders too heavy for her to carry her own weight. Two weeks ago this would have been what she wanted: Rachel in a little cell, waiting to be retired. Another of the six down, one step closer to ending the case and possibly acquiring enough money to move from Lima, Ohio and leave her blade running past and broke parents behind. Quinn had retired many replicants, two in this case alone, but something felt so…inhumane about watching Rachel look scared and lonely in a cell, waiting to be retired. Quinn's brow furrowed as she thought back to the loving way LeRoy spoke of Rachel; she was someone's child, oddly enough.

The soft shock of fingers ghosting over her left hand caused Quinn's breath to hitch as Rachel's palm settled along the back of her hand. Rachel's hand was warm, soft, and this was the first time Quinn had ever taken the time to notice.

"Please get me out of here," Rachel murmured.

"All right, conjugal visitation is done-zo," Santana called loudly.

Quinn jerked back as if she had been burned, staring straight at Rachel.

Rachel's hand hung limply in the air for a moment before she placed it on the bar where Quinn's had been. "Please get me out," she whimpered.

Quinn's shoulders squared. "Stop whining."

Rachel's shoulders slumped at the reprimand, but she didn't say anything.

"You said you were an adult, act like one." Her head tilted in Santana's direction. "She's an idiot. Ignore her."

"I'll show you an idiot," Santana muttered. "Bitch."

When Rachel offered no reply, Quinn backed away from the cell. She walked forward without looking back at the sad eyes she knew were burning holes through her coat. Quinn shot Santana a cold look as she walked past her. "Quit treating her like she's an animal."

"She's less than that," Santana shot back.

Quinn tensed, but kept walking. She bypassed Puck and held a hand up to silence whatever question he had to ask before she stormed into Sue's office and slammed the door behind her. Quinn marched up to her desk and slammed the palms of her hands on it. "What is this about?"

Sue's expression remained impassive as she sat back in her seat. "Hello, Quinn, lovely day we're having."

"Why is Rachel in a holding cell?" Quinn growled.

"Because she's a replicant. It's illegal for them to be on the streets. I know that, you know that, yet you still allowed her to roam freely about."

Quinn's nails curled into the stacks of papers on Sue's desk in frustration. "I told you what I was doing with her. For that to work she needs to trust me, and for her to trust me she needs to be out of that damn cell."

Sue frowned deeply. "She's a replicant."

"She's not a threat!" Quinn replied incredulously.

Sue stood to mimic Quinn's position until they were face to face. "They're all a threat! Or have you forgotten that?"

"She hasn't hurt anyone!"

"Hiram Berry would beg to differ," Sue countered.

Quinn recoiled at the statement, leaning back and standing to her full height. "There are four replicants on Earth, presumably in Lima, right now. You can't just pin the attack on Rachel just because her existence blindsided you. You're not even trying to look at this objectively," Quinn spat.

Sue leaned back to fold her arms across her chest, offense at Quinn's comment showing clearly on her face. "Whose side are you on?"

"All I'm doing is trying to retire replicants," Quinn replied. "Now there's a case on top of it. And perhaps the replicant you have cowering in a corner in that holding cell knows something, but she's not going to talk if she doesn't trust anyone."

Sue's eyes narrowed as she sized Quinn up for a long moment. Her lips pressed into a firm line. "If I find out you've been lying to me this entire time, I'm taking your badge, Fabray," Sue muttered. "And you'll be expelled from the blade runner force permanently."

Quinn didn't respond, just turned around and walked out of Sue's office. She swiftly walked back to the holding area and tugged on the keys around Santana's belt loop. "Let. Her. Out."

"Whoa there, Amazon." Santana yanked the keys back. "I'm not going to do anything just because you say. Who died and made you head cheerleader?"

"Let her go," Sue said ominously as she rounded the corner. Her hands were clasped behind her back as she glared down her nose at Quinn and Santana as if they were children.

Santana dropped the keys into Quinn's hand to gape up at Sue in disbelief. "You're just gonna let that skin-job go?"

Sue said nothing as she eyed Quinn across the hallway at Rachel's cell.

Quinn silenced whatever Rachel was about to say with a sharp look in an attempt to not have them both be incriminated of anything as Rachel eagerly gripped the cell bars. Quinn unlocked the cell and Rachel stepped out and into Quinn's arms, clinging to her waist as she instantly began to blubber fat tears onto Quinn's shirt.

"She just kept _yelling_," Rachel cried.

Quinn caught Sue and Santana staring at her and Rachel with interest for a long moment before the both of them walked away.

* * *

Rachel was a wreck. From what Quinn could make out she had never been yelled at a day in her existence, and didn't take well to Santana berating her the entire two hours she was in lockup. She was nothing but hiccupping sobs the entire ride to Quinn's apartment and clung to Quinn into the building and on the elevator. Now they were at her door and Rachel was fitting herself into Quinn's side any way she could as Quinn fumbled with the keys with one hand.

She finally managed to unlock it and they poured into her apartment just as Rachel had poured into Quinn's life, all limbs and emotions. "Shh, stop crying," Quinn murmured as she closed the door behind her, twisting the lock. She went to her designated couch as was becoming habit. What wasn't habitual was the fact that Rachel followed her, and nestled down beside her. She wrapped her arms around Quinn's waist and buried her face into Quinn's shoulder, soaking Quinn's tan jacket with tears.

"She was so mean," Rachel whispered. "She kept calling me names, and telling me I was going to die."

Quinn swallowed thickly at the last of Rachel's statement, remembering that for all of her looks and mental faculties, Rachel was still only two years old.

With a heavy, put-out sigh, Quinn weaseled her arm from between herself and Rachel and gently pushed Rachel back.

"Quinn," Rachel cried.

Quinn ignored her protest and wiggled out of her coat, tossing it along the arm of the couch. She knew there would be a day where she would regret this—she opened her arms and Rachel fell into them as Quinn wrapped an arm around Rachel's back. Rachel surged forward into the embrace and buried her tear-stained face into Quinn's neck.

Rachel couldn't say a word as she sat there and hiccupped out needless breaths, and Quinn, uncomfortable, couldn't will her tightly pressed lips to part and offer words of comfort. So, they sat there in silence apart from Rachel's gasping breaths until those quieted, too.

Quinn thoughts raced from one extreme to the next as she tried to come to any possible conclusion about any of them. Sue no longer trusted her. Santana was probably out to get her now. She had chosen a replicant over her own colleagues, and for that she didn't have a concrete reason why, just jumbled thoughts that somehow justified her actions as she was in the midst of performing them—Rachel was innocent, _hopefully_, Rachel was someone's child, someone out there loved and cared for her, and under the guile of a capable adult replicant Rachel was just a child, one who abhorred being yelled at.

She could hear the faint vibration of her phone in her jacket pocket on the arm of the couch, but Quinn sat still as a statue, staring unseeingly ahead. She honestly had no idea what to do next.

Soft lips trembled against Quinn's throat, and she clenched her eyes shut against the unexpected feel. Rachel's hands were small, but the strength that lay behind them was palpable as they dug into Quinn's side to grip and hold her closer. Rachel inhaled deeply. "What's a skin-job?" she rasped.

Her voice sounded foreign, scratchy, and Quinn cleared her throat to ensure hers didn't sound the same as she spoke. "It's a derogatory term…for replicants."

A soft, pained sound left Rachel's throat with a soft exhalation of, "Oh." Her hand dragged from Quinn's waist down to her thigh that she used to push herself upward. Rachel licked her lips free of tears and stared up at the blurry image of Quinn before her. "Is that how you see me, too?"

Quinn's head lolled to the side, a sigh lifting her shoulder as she stared into Rachel's glistening eyes. The tears somehow made them more vibrant and they looked like dark crystals shining at Quinn. Without thought, Quinn found herself brushing Rachel's bangs from her damp eyelashes. "Not anymore," she admitted.

Rachel's eyes fluttered closed at the soft feel of Quinn's fingers in her hair. Her hand that had balled into an anxious fist on Quinn's thigh unclenched to lie limply on compliant flesh. Her breath hitched. "What do you think of me now?"

"I don't even know."

Quinn's hand dropped from Rachel's hair to rest against the back of the couch. Now that Rachel had calmed down Quinn was becoming hyperaware of the soft press of Rachel's body everywhere. The hand resting on her thigh was warm and a part of Quinn wondered if every part of Rachel's body was the same warm temperature. She brought her hand up to curl around Rachel's shoulder and gently pushed her away.

"What's wrong?" Rachel instantly protested. "Did I do something?"

Quinn scooted a little further down the couch with a shake of her head. She stared down at her glass table to the tan and brown rug underneath it. "I have a few questions to ask you and I want you to answer them honestly," she heard herself say.

Her voice was detached and devoid of warmth, causing Rachel to sit up straighter.

"Do you know Hiram Berry?"

Rachel's brow furrowed immediately at the name. She was silent for a moment, then answered. "No, I've never heard of that name."

"Did you strangle Hiram Berry?"

"Quinn, did you not just hear me?" Rachel asked. "I don't even know him—is he related to my father, or something?"

Quinn glanced up and over at Rachel, gaze burning as she pointedly said, "Don't lie to me."

Rachel bristled. "I'm not. Quinn, I have yet to lie to you, and I don't intend on starting now. If I knew of a Hiram Berry, I would inform you. Furthermore, I _do not_ harm people—"

"How can I trust that?"

"You're trying to _kill_ me!" Rachel declared emphatically. "Yet I've never once hurt you. I've _befriended_ you, despite the fact that it's your job to kill me. I did not harm Hiram Berry, whoever he is."

And Quinn had no choice but to believe her. As far as she knew Rachel had never lied to her, her denying knowledge of Hiram corroborated with LeRoy's story, and Rachel had never hurt Quinn. Three signs pointing to her innocence. Plus, there was a part of Quinn that simply wanted to believe her.

"Okay," she murmured after a moment, and Rachel's face lit up as she scooted closer.

"You really believe me?"

Quinn shrugged. "I don't have much of a choice. And I certainly can't arrest you without motive and probable cause."

"Then I'm free to stay?" Rachel asked hopefully.

"You're free to go," Quinn corrected. "I saw your father today and he seems to be worried about the fact that you hang out in the streets more often nowadays."

Rachel's expression darkened. "I have every right to."

"I agree. But you were right—Hiram is someone very important to your father, and I think he would appreciate if you went home to check on him."

Her eyes softened as she tentatively asked, "How was he when you saw him?"

"Awful," Quinn admitted.

"I should go," Rachel mumbled as she stood up. She smoothed down her too short skirt, and Quinn's eyes absentmindedly dropped to her flexing calves before she stood as well.

"Do you want me to take you home?" she found herself asking. Normally Rachel was left to her own devices to make it home, but Quinn felt rude to drive Rachel to her apartment from the police station, only to send her home on her own afterward.

Rachel's smile lit up the entire room. "I'd love that, Quinn, thank you."

* * *

"Quinn. Quinn? _Quinn_!"

"What?" Quinn mumbled.

Puck shifted the gear into park along the side of the road, and turned to Quinn. "You're distracted."

Quinn sighed. "My badge is on the line, Puck, of course I'm distracted."

Puck scoffed. "Sue threatens to have our badge every other case. This isn't new for you."

Quinn's face was painted in disinterest as her gaze drifted from Puck to the hotel they were parked in front of. "This is it?"

He nodded. "We can either sit out here for five minutes and sort your shit out, or we can walk inside and risk both our lives because my partner is distracted right now." When Quinn didn't say anything, Puck continued. "Now what the hell's been eating your brain for the last two days?"

Quinn glanced away from Puck with a sigh. "Last time I saw Rachel she was a wreck because she had been thrown in lockup and Santana had been screaming who-knows-what at her." He waited silently, and after a moment Quinn continued with, "I shouldn't feel guilty because she got her feelings hurt."

"But then again, she's not supposed to have feelings either," Puck added.

Quinn nodded. "She's not. But she does." She cleared her throat and unbuckled her seatbelt. "Let's do something productive, okay?"

Puck eyed her warily as Quinn slammed the door shut, then he unbuckled his own seatbelt and climbed out of the car. They walked through the double doors of the hotel and into the lobby toward the wide eyed bellboy behind the counter. He was a clueless looking blonde headed boy with freckles in a V-neck polo shirt. Quinn flashed her badge before placing it back inside of her coat. "We called earlier about the possibility of replicants living in the building." At the blank look on his face she sighed in impatience. "May I speak with your manager?"

"S-Sure." He fumbled for the phone just inches in front of him at the edge of steel that had crept into Quinn's voice. Puck chuckled quietly and leaned an elbow against the counter, fixing a glare onto his face to further intimidate the boy.

He dialed an extension and mumbled some words into the phone. "He should be here shortly."

An elevator dinged a moment later, and Quinn cut her eyes across the lobby to the man walking out. He was short and stout with a beer belly dressed in a white button up shirt protruding over his black slacks and tight belt. He was balding at the top, a comb over doing nothing to mask most of his bald head, and Quinn smiled at the older man as he waddled up to the counter. Puck straightened to stand a few scant inches above the man. "Good afternoon, detectives. I trust you're well."

"We are, thank you." Quinn gestured toward the keys resting on the wall behind the counter. "May we have the key so that we can look around?"

The hotel was old, having not been refurbished in quite a while, which meant cheap rooms and an actual key for locked doors instead of more modern keycards.

"What room, again?" Puck asked once he and Quinn stepped off the elevator onto the third floor.

"Room three-fourteen," Quinn mumbled. They walked down the hallway to the appropriate door, and Quinn turned around to shush Puck as she fished her gun out of her pocket.

Puck grabbed his gun and leaned back against the wall beside the door. From working with Quinn in the past he knew better than to even ask if she wanted to play back up.

Quinn unlocked the door with as little noise as possible and twisted the knob. She made eye contact with Puck and counted silently to three before kicking the door open. "Police!" she shouted as the door flew back. It became unhinged and slumped against the door, but Quinn ignored it as she walked further inside. It was a mostly empty room with a fully made bed in the middle and a TV resting in front of it.

Puck walked further into the room, took one look at the door and shook his head. "You can't control those legs of yours yet?"

Quinn shook off the question. She kept her gun poised in front of her as she moved across the room to the closed closet in the corner. She opened it to find it mostly empty besides a box in the corner of the floor. "Puck, you there?" she clarified before bending down and dropping the gun beside her to grab the box.

"Yeah, I'm here." Puck rounded a corner to the bathroom to find it empty. He walked back into the room to find Quinn walking toward the bed with a box. "What's that?"

She shrugged and opened it. It was a shoebox, the size of the shoe printed on the inside, a men's size thirteen. But the contents inside were even more important, startling. Quinn's lips parted in muted shock as she grabbed the photos inside of the box. There were four of them, the one on top being a black and white picture of a family. Quinn blinked rapidly as she went through all of the pictures, different families in each photo.

"What the hell is this?" Puck mumbled, voice strained in his own surprise and discomfort.

"I don't know," Quinn admitted. "I have no clue."

She rubbed her lips together, placing the photos in her coat and taking a stand. Her eyes were unfocused as she looked right through Puck, and he took a step forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. "What are you thinking about?"

"Why would replicants need photos?"

"Why would they need _anything_?" Puck countered.

"Rachel's the only replicant with memories, the only replicant that would need photos to further prove her false memories," Quinn mused. "So I've been told. But that could be a lie."

Puck looked behind him toward the door, and shifted to keep it in his line of sight as Quinn sat on the edge of the bed. "But they're also almost four," she continued.

"What are you talking about, Q?"

"Their kill switches are set in place to deactivate them before they become smarter, more human-like in emotions and actions, such as violence that could be very deadly considering how strong they are. But they can also learn other things, like, the need to belong for instance." She fished out the pictures again and flipped through them. There were multiple people in every picture standing close together with smiling faces. "What if it's possible that they just…want to be human?"

Puck stared down at her in consternation, then shook his head. "I think you've got Rachel in your head and you're generalizing her to all replicants," he told her. "Look, I'll admit that she's…different. But I don't know whether it's a good different or bad different; all I know is that she's the only _different_ kind of replicant."

Quinn dragged her eyes from the photos to Puck standing in front of her. "If you weren't sure if her difference was good, then why did you call me that day when she was in lockup?"

"Because she's important to you."

When Quinn's eyes grew wide and she opened her mouth to protest, Puck turned away. "We should probably go. I don't know what I expected but…there isn't much here."

"I hope Hiram wakes up soon," Quinn said as she stood from the bed to follow Puck out of the door. "He may be the only lead we get for a motive."

"If Rachel didn't do it."

"She said she didn't and I believe her."

"Of course you do."

Quinn's eyes narrowed as they stepped into the elevator. She folded her arms across her chest and sunk back against the railing along the back wall. She abhorred when people presumed to know how she felt, and this was no exception. But it was true that she believed Rachel. And it was true that she was beginning to extend sympathy to the replicant that had crash landed into her life and showed no signs of leaving. Quinn would have to actually be heartless to feel nothing at the sight of Rachel crying. But she _wasn't_, no matter what her tactless and obtuse ex-boyfriend had once said.

They stepped out of the elevator to find the manager eagerly waiting by the counter. "Did you retire them? Please say you did," he begged desperately.

"They weren't there," Quinn reported with an apology lacing her voice. "You have our number, so please call the second you notice that they're back and we'll get back down here as soon as we can."

The man looked pensive and forlorn, but nodded anyway, and Quinn and Puck headed out of the building. Just as they reached the door, Quinn turned back around. "Just one more question. Did they give you names by any chance?"

The man nodded hurriedly. "We always ask for names to know who has what room. The names they gave were Finn, Mike, and Sebastian."

"Those were the names Sue gave us," Quinn mumbled as they walked out of the building.

Puck nodded. "Those are our guys. And all three are here. All we have to do is wait for the tip and then they're just sitting ducks." His excitement was evident in the little bounce in his step as he walked to the car. "Then we'll be done."

Then there would be only Rachel left. Quinn sighed.

"Back to the station we go?" Puck asked as they made it to the car.

Quinn checked her watch, then grabbed the door handle. "Lunch time. Call Sam and grab a quick bite of something?"

"Sounds like a pl—shit, Quinn, look out!"

Quinn spun around to find a fist connecting with her jaw. Two hands grabbed the lapels of her coat and hoisted her back up when she lost balance. She was slammed against the car when she overheard Puck threatening whoever was attacking her. Quinn blinked her eyes open, focusing her vision to find a rather large man towering over her.

"Let her go, you fucking skin-job!" Puck threatened. He grabbed his gun and steadied it over the roof of the car to aim at the replicant assaulting Quinn. Just as he was about to pull the trigger an arm curled around his throat from behind and constricted like a snake to cut off his air supply.

Quinn heard Puck gurgling for air behind her and instinctively began to fight against what she presumed was a replicant.

"How old am I?" he asked in a cold, monotone voice with lifeless eyes.

Quinn gasped in surprise at the question. "Don't know," she choked out. She lifted her leg and kicked to send the replicant stumbling back several feet before landing on its ass. Puck scuffling with his own problems could be heard behind her as Quinn grabbed her gun. The replicant jumped to his feet and rapidly approached her as she steadied it to shoot him in the head, and he slapped her hand as if he were swatting a fly, sending the gun skirting across the street that began to congest with lunch hour traffic and curious drivers who had stopped to survey the disturbance but not join in.

Strong hands grabbed her throat and Quinn instantly panicked, remembering how Mercedes had choked her a week ago. She dug her nails into the replicants hand, the fact that he could feel no pain unable to register in her desperation. Her legs kicked out wildly, trying to land a kick anywhere.

"How old am I?" the replicant asked again, and Quinn sputtered as even swallowing the saliva gathering in her throat became difficult. She vaguely registered Puck's pained outcry in her mind as tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. Her vision began to grow weak, darkening around the edges until the replicant's cold expression was the only thing she could see. "Finn Hudson—born in April, 2016, how old am I?"

Though no sound came out, Quinn opened her mouth to reply anyway. As she was fading out of consciousness, the only sound that pierced Quinn's brain was several gunshots in succession. She vaguely wondered if she had been shot until she felt herself crumble to the ground on her knees. She slumped forward to land on her hands and didn't move for whole seconds until her vision came back to her. She turned her head to find the replicant that had been attacking her lay motionless on the ground. Then she looked to her left, several yards away to find Rachel Berry holding a smoking gun with a haunted, pained expression on her face.

"Bastard ran away when he heard the gunshot," Quinn heard Puck wheeze from the other side of the car, but her eyes remained on Rachel who had yet to move, Quinn's own gun still pointing toward her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

* * *

Quinn stumbled to her feet, gasping for air with every step she took. She pushed off the police car, the sound of honking horns and Puck yelling if she was all right sounding muffled in her ears as her slowly focusing vision fixated on Rachel's still form and the gun pointing at her. She lurched toward Rachel across the street with her hand outstretched, for once blindingly trusting in her dazed state. A car barreling toward her screeched to a stop, tires burning against pavement, but Quinn barely registered it. She reached Rachel and her hand curled around the barrel of the gun. A swift tug didn't break the gun free and widened hazel eyes slid to Rachel who was visibly shaking with a death grip on the gun.

"Rachel," Quinn whispered. When Rachel didn't move an inch, Quinn stepped closer and grasped her chin tightly. Her voice was a stern bark the second time around. "_Rachel_." She jerked her chin sideways until Rachel was looking her in the eye, expression completely blank. "It's okay. Let go now."

A shaky inhale was breathed, then one by one, Rachel peeled her fingers back, releasing her vice like grip on the gun into Quinn's waiting palm. Her lower lip trembled as she stared up at the weary expression on Quinn's face and without a word she collapsed in Quinn's arms.

Quinn could feel her heart thunder painfully against her ribcage in a mix of adrenaline and relief to still be alive. She wrapped an arm around Rachel buried into her shoulder and turned them both until she could see Puck limping toward them. He had a cut across his eyebrow, another black eye and a busted lip—but he was alive.

"You okay?" Puck asked. His eyes ran over Quinn in silent assessment of her injuries.

Bruising was beginning to spread along her neck, but the waning epinephrine shooting through her veins just told her to be thankful everything was still functioning. "Fine," she sighed. "You?"

Puck shrugged a shoulder. "Had worse. Her?" he continued as he warily eyed Rachel.

"She'll be fine," Quinn assured. Her gaze washed over the traffic of cars in search of a taxi. "You think you can take the car back to the precinct?" Her tongue ran nervously over her lower lip. "I'll take her home."

"I'll tell Sue you needed the rest of the day off," Puck said with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "Hell, after I drop the car off, _I'll_ probably be taking the rest of the day off."

"Be careful, Puck."

He eyed Rachel's still, unblinking form beside Quinn and frowned. "Right back at ya, Q."

* * *

Quinn silently paced the length of the living room. She barked out a cough and absentmindedly rubbed at her bruising neck, casting a wilting glance to Rachel on the couch; she hadn't moved or said a word in the past half hour. She had even stopped breathing, and was starting to put Quinn on edge. It was a frightening sight that made Quinn recall how effortlessly Rachel had splintered her brand new table, pinned her to the floor in her own apartment. Rachel was strong, unpredictable, and Quinn shuddered to think what the outcome of this encounter would be.

She should have taken Rachel home. And she would have, but there was a distinct underline of disdain that Quinn noticed Rachel begin to feel for her home life, and Rachel had always seemed comfortable in Quinn's apartment anyway. Though when Quinn started taking Rachel's comfort into consideration, she didn't know.

Her phone began to ring and Quinn jumped at the sound of it, cursing herself for appearing so weak in front of Rachel who looked to be a ticking time bomb right now. She grabbed her coat from off the arm of the other couch and fished her phone from out of the pocket.

"Yeah?"

"How ya holding up?"

Quinn sighed. "I'm fine, Puck, thanks. You?"

"I'm home now, for the rest of the day," he admitted with a sigh of his own. "Getting too old for this."

"You're twenty-two," Quinn drawled with a roll of her eyes.

"Exactly, I'm past prime."

The tension in her shoulders eased as she walked to the unoccupied couch and sat down.

"How was Rachel?" Puck asked after a moment.

Quinn casted a wry glance to her left. "She's gone into full-on creep mode. Hasn't moved or spoken a word since we got back to my apartment."

"She's there with you?" The surprise was evident in his voice, and Quinn glossed over it with a shrug of her shoulders.

"She's obviously shaken up," Quinn rationalized. "I doubt LeRoy would know how to deal with this."

"And you do?"

She did. The first time she had ever retired a replicant had been on a Friday, and Quinn had spent the rest of the weekend curled in a ball under a mound of covers in her bed, dodging calls from Sam to hang out, calls from Puck about how awesome their new job was, and calls from her parents back when they still regularly kept in touch. They looked _so_ human that it had shaken Quinn up as she stared straight at one and put a bullet through its head.

Quinn had returned to work Monday with a dry face and a cool demeanor, ready to do it all again until it got easier.

"Better than he does," she shakily answered.

"Look, just—watch yourself, okay? Those things are known to fly off the handle at any moment, especially when faced with life or death situations."

That certainly didn't put her at ease with knowing she had an emotionally distressed replicant in her apartment. "I know," Quinn grumbled. She slid her phone back into her coat pocket once goodbyes were said. She looked down at her watch to realize an hour had passed and she was through waiting around for Rachel to show signs of life.

With slow, careful movements so as not to startle Rachel, Quinn walked toward the couch and sat down on the glass table resting in front of it. She resisted clasping Rachel's hands resting on her legs in her own, and instead looked up to Rachel's face.

There were certain moments Quinn felt that Rachel actually looked her 'age' and this was one of them. When real world situations that Rachel had never encountered before presented themselves they seemed to age her, diminish her youthfulness as LeRoy had suggested.

Rachel continued to stare straight ahead, unmoving and seemingly unaware that Quinn was even beside her, and Quinn sighed. She wondered if this was what it would be like when Rachel's four years were up. "I can't know what you're feeling if you don't speak," she whispered, deciding not to dwell on that thought for the moment.

Rachel's lower lip immediately began to tremble at the soft timbre of Quinn's voice. It jutted out and she blinked tears into her eyes as her head lolled to the side to stare at Quinn. Her heavy gaze dropped to the impression of fingers bruised into Quinn's neck and her forehead crinkled into a soft scowl. She drew a hand up until her fingers brushed over Quinn's throat.

Quinn flinched at the contact, jaw tightening as a tight swallow worked down her throat, and the pads of Rachel's fingers felt the lump on its way down. She breathed for the first time in over an hour, a raggedy, audible exhale. "Are you okay?"

Stunned at the fact that the first words out of Rachel's petulantly set mouth was an askance of her well-being, it took Quinn a moment to answer. "Are you?" she countered, pulling back when Rachel's fingers began to trace around her collarbone.

Rachel's hand dropped to her lap to join its twin in fretting over the hem of her skirt. "I've never killed anyone before," she mumbled. When Quinn opened her mouth, Rachel was quick to rebuff. "And please, can we not go into semantics over the difference between killing and retiring, because for me…I have killed someone."

"I get it."

Rachel's eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Quinn threw a hand up.

"They look human, I get it. It was hard for me to retire my first one, too."

"You do not get it," Rachel said simply. "I _knew_ Finn Hudson. I worked with him when he returned to Earth over a year ago for fine tuning. I have seen and interacted with him before, and I never thought that the last time I would see him that I would—" A choked sob interrupted the rest of her sentence and Rachel wrapped her arms around her middle, rocking back and forth on the couch.

Quinn braced her hands on the edge of the table and pushed off of it to sit on the couch beside Rachel. She took one look at Rachel, then glanced away, not really having any words of wisdom or comfort.

Rachel scooted closer, eyes narrowing at the purpling bruise on Quinn's neck. "I would do it again, though."

"What?" Quinn mumbled.

"Kill him, if it meant your safety."

A surprised breath stuttered out of Quinn. "Why would you kill one of your own—for me?" she whispered.

Rachel's gaze dropped to Quinn's hand resting between them on the couch. She grabbed it, anything for contact, and scooted that much closer. "I really, really care about you, Quinn," Rachel murmured. "A lot."

Quinn cleared her throat, glancing away from the sincerity she saw shining in Rachel's eyes. Her hand flexed as she pulled it back and stood from the couch. "I'm going to…make a sandwich, or something," she mumbled. "Want some tea?"

"You don't have to leave," Rachel called feebly once Quinn stood.

"I'm hungry," Quinn reiterated. "Do you want tea?"

"Yes," Rachel whispered, biting her lip in anxiety as Quinn turned to leave.

Quinn walked around the table in front of the couch and headed toward the kitchen. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser on the counter beside the sink and wiped at her watering eyes. She took a deep breath, bracing her hands on the counter and staring down at the marble surface.

Nothing made sense anymore, and she felt weird. She had nearly been strangled to death by a replicant that Rachel had retired, only to have Rachel tell her that she apparently really cared for Quinn despite the fact that Rachel wasn't even supposed to be able to feel.

Her lungs labored with a shaky inhale as she pushed herself up from the counter. The absence of adrenaline left her body feeling heavy and tired, her hand shaky as she reached up into a cabinet above the sink for a mug, filling it with water and placing it in the microwave.

Rachel surprisingly hadn't crept into the kitchen yet, and Quinn reveled in the much needed distance. Rachel's touch made her skin crawl for some reason, and she had to get away from it because Rachel didn't really exercise personal space when she was in distress and Quinn thrived on her own space. The entirety of the kitchen was enough for now as she walked to the pantry to retrieve a packet of chamomile tea. She placed the tea bag in the steaming mug of water and carefully walked out of the kitchen with it. "I normally drink chamomile when I can't sleep. But it also helps with anxiety, and since you're so on edge right now, I thought—"

Quinn stopped talking when Rachel didn't react to her. She was lying on her side on the couch, legs drawn up, one arm pillowing her head. Her eyes were closed and even breaths gently stirred her body.

"Rachel?" Quinn voiced softly. She walked closer and placed the cup of tea on the table, kneeling before Rachel to find her sleeping soundly. A quick glance at her watch told her it was nearing five p.m. She hadn't known replicants could sleep and suddenly wondered what kind of hours Rachel kept if she fell asleep in the evening.

Biting the corner of her lip, Quinn swallowed a lump down her throat as she brought a hesitant hand forward to smooth back Rachel's hair from her face. Long, dark locks of hair were silky smooth and soft as they sifted through Quinn's curious fingers that then traced along Rachel's cheekbone, warm skin concaving pliantly as Quinn touched it. She marveled at how life like, _real_ Rachel was under her fingertips as she physically acquainted herself with a replicant for the first time.

Pleasure model replicants were known to feel and act like a real person…_during_, but Quinn, only having been intimate with two people in her entire life, had _never_ had the thought and certainly not the desire to be with a replicant. She had never touched one outside of punching it or attempting to hold it hostage. Until several days ago when Rachel wrapped her hand around her own, Quinn had never taken the time to notice how much like humans replicants felt, even down to warm body temperatures, soft hair and skin, moist lips…

Quinn shut her eyes tightly as she pulled away, suddenly feeling like an intruder. She abruptly stood to her feet, looming over Rachel in indecision of what to do. Thin eyebrows knitted together as she wondered if Rachel felt as drained as she did, and if so, Quinn didn't really have the heart to wake her up and kick her out.

Sighing heavily, Quinn spun on her heel and walked stiffly to her hallway closet, grabbing a giant comforter with both hands and walking back into the living room. She slid the cup of tea further down the table to keep from knocking it over and spread the blanket over Rachel's still form, though she had no idea whether or not Rachel actually got cold or whether she occasionally wore her coat out into the wintering weather to better blend in with humans.

She stood to her full height, rubbing her forehead in anxiety as she walked to the other side of the couch to grab her phone. Casting one last glance at Rachel, Quinn walked down the hallway to her room, closing the door behind her and contemplating locking it. With trembling fingers, she dialed Puck's number and climbed into bed.

"Go for Puck."

Quinn let out an unsteady laugh. "Damn, you're lame."

"Says you. I greeted a girl whose number I just got on the phone like this once, and she was over my apartment in ten minutes flat."

"Doubt it." She peeled back her covers and slid under them with a sigh. She could probably sleep straight through the next twenty-four hours with no problem.

Puck was silent for a moment and the only sound on the line was Quinn's uneven breaths. She had had asthma as a child and had since grown out of it, but to this day her breathing still tended to grow laborious in stressful situations as if prepping for an attack that wouldn't come.

"What's up, Q?" Puck asked, recognizing her pattern of breathing right away.

Quinn took a deep breath and held it for several seconds in order to regulate her breathing. "Rachel's asleep on my living room couch," she sighed out after a moment.

"Why's she still there?" he asked, concerned.

Quinn shrugged a shoulder, though she knew he couldn't see. "She was anxious."

"_You_ are anxious because she's in your apartment."

She went to protest, then bit her lip pensively. "I'm not nervous about _her_—she's harmless. It's more just the replicant aspect, I think."

"But she _is_ a replicant, Quinn," Puck needlessly pointed out, and Quinn bristled at his patronizing tone of voice.

"I know what she is, okay? I'm _well_ aware of what she is and what she's capable of."

"Okay, okay, sorry," he grumbled.

Quinn slammed back onto her pillows, pinching the bridge of her nose to fight off a headache. "She saved my life."

"She did."

"Why, though?"

"What'd she say?"

Quinn scoffed out an incredulous laugh. "That she 'cares' about me."

"It's possible," Puck supplied. "She can feel, and all."

"Yeah," she murmured after a moment. She rubbed at her eyes once more, then yawned. "I should probably go. I'm tired, and I'm sure I could sleep for days."

"I definitely won't be waking up until Monday. Later, Q."

"Bye, Puck." The phone landed with a thump on the bed, and Quinn turned over to bury her face into the pillows below her.

* * *

When Quinn awoke she immediately knew she wasn't the only one in her pitch black room. There was no movement, no sound—just unease raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

Rachel, perched at the foot of the bed, heard the change in Quinn's breathing immediately and perked up. "Good morning, Quinn."

Her heart rate spiked at the sound of Rachel's voice but her brain registered just who it was before instinct had her throwing back her covers and fumbling in the dark for her gun. Quinn exhaled a trembling breath, and leaned over to the lamp beside her bed. It clicked and light dispersed over the room, chasing away the dark to reveal Rachel staring at her expectantly.

"That's really fucking creepy," Quinn deadpanned, voice thick with sleep.

Rachel bit her lip guiltily. "I'm sorry. I had originally come in here to see if you were awake. And I had every intention of leaving," she rushed out.

Quinn arched an eyebrow as if to prompt, _but_?

Rachel's jaw twitched with a sheepish response on the tip of her tongue. "But you just…you looked so beautiful sleeping, like an angel. It was poetic—just…watching you."

Quinn stared at her for a long moment, then collapsed back onto the bed, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes. She briefly wondered how Rachel could even see her sleeping, but decided that she didn't want to hear more about replicants and their super special abilities to see clearly in the dark. "I'm no angel," she finally muttered.

"You are to me."

Well, that was new.

Quinn shook her head as she sat up. Her voice was sharp when she spoke. "No. I am no angel, and you need to stop seeing me that way."

When Rachel didn't say anything, Quinn looked away from her to glance at the clock on her bedside table. It was five in the morning. With a groan, she tossed back the covers and tossed her legs over the bed. "I don't even have to get up for work this early," she griped.

Her legs barely moved, stiff, and Quinn shot a wary glance at Rachel from the corner of her eye before peering down at her feet resting on the floor. She sighed and stood up to her full height. Her gaze dropped down to where they rested abnormally straight and with a soft grunt, Quinn pulled her leg up, bended at the knee and pulled it back with her right hand to stretch, left eye squinting in discomfort.

Rachel's dark gaze rested, heavy, on Quinn's legs as she slowly rose from the bed. Her widening eyes found Quinn's guarded ones as Rachel gestured to them. "You-you…" She was so excited she couldn't get her words out.

Quinn decided her stretching could wait and she walked toward the door with one stiff leg. "Shut up."

"I've seen replicants do that," Rachel needlessly informed her.

Quinn ignored her statement and walked out of the room, stopping by the hallway closet to grab a towel and wash cloth.

"Older models," Rachel continued. "Their metal bones stiffen because the alloy they were made of was much less malleable than what I, and every other replicant made after me are made of."

Quinn spun around and stepped up to Rachel who squeaked in surprise and quieted under Quinn's oppressive glare. "Shut. Up."

"What are you?" Rachel whispered instead.

"I'm _human_."

"But your legs—"

"Are neither here nor there," Quinn replied curtly. She spun around to step into the bathroom.

"I won't judge you," Rachel said softly.

Quinn stopped, dropping the contents in her hand on the edge of the sink. "Why are you so pushy?"

"Because you're clearly uncomfortable about something that you shouldn't be. I think this is nothing short of remarkable. You're the bridge between human and replicant. Don't you think that's amazing?"

"I think its sick," Quinn choked out.

Tentatively, Rachel walked into the bathroom, the soles of her flats soundless against the floor. "Why is it sick?"

"Because _I_ didn't have a choice."

Rachel placed a hand on her shoulder and Quinn flinched away, troubled gaze landing on hers.

"Why didn't you have a choice?"

"I was in a coma."

"Unconscious for a prolonged period of time," Rachel murmured to herself. "Why?"

"Why do you _care_?" Quinn sighed.

"We're friends, and I care deeply about you."

"Yes, how could I forget." Quinn rolled her eyes. She slinked away from the sink to walk over to the shower, stretching her leg behind her without having to watch Rachel's calculating eyes. She started the shower, and sat down on the closed lid of her toilet. "I was in a car accident when I was eighteen, at the end of my senior year of high school." She looked up to the grief stricken expression on Rachel's face. "Got into a coma," she exhaled. "And my mother preferred me to have…these," she said, gesturing to her legs, "so that I could walk and eventually go on to win prom queen instead of me being wheelchair bound with my own legs, and not win prom queen because of my disability. And now I'm some cyborg _freak_ because—I don't want to talk about it anymore." She turned away.

The porcelain of Quinn's sink began to crack from the inside and Rachel's grip around the edge of it slackened until her hand fell away. "Cyborg freak," Rachel repeated disdainfully. "No, you're not that at all. You're…unique and special, and one of a kind, Quinn."

She sounded so earnest and assertive in her own beliefs that Quinn almost believed her. But more than anything Quinn just wanted this conversation to be over, to once again forget that her legs were artificial—of course until Santana called her Amazon, or Puck commented on the fact that after nearly three years she still hadn't gained control over her legs.

Rachel walked closer to kneel in front of Quinn. "But this wasn't something you wanted," she said, hand rising to touch Quinn's leg. She looked up to meet Quinn's gaze with open curiosity and lack of judgment. "May I?"

Quinn nodded, and turned away.

She felt Rachel's finger prod at her toe, then her entire hand grasped her ankle under Quinn's tight fitting jeans. "How did I not notice this before?" Rachel murmured to herself as she felt the hard, unyielding alloy that formed Quinn's ankle.

"It's not very noticeable," Quinn breathed thickly as Rachel's attentive fingers curved to trace along the back of her calves. Her skin prickled in the wake of those soft hands as they stopped at her knees. Rachel rubbed circles into her knee caps, then ran her hands down Quinn's hard shins. "I wear dresses, skirts, people don't notice."

"People don't notice me, either," Rachel told her. "When I'm out running errands around the city no one casts a second glance."

"I wouldn't have noticed you were a replicant had I had stopped the EPR test at the appropriate twenty to thirty question limit."

Rachel smiled, an uncharacteristic, secretive smirk that Quinn had never seen on her before. "So I was informed." She poked Quinn's skin bone through her jeans, and marveled at the handiwork. "Your legs must be remarkably strong."

Quinn instantly thought back to the door she had unhinged when she kicked it open, and chuckled with a sardonic grin aimed at Rachel. "You have no idea."

Rachel's lips pulled into a smile at the obvious tease at her expense. "I think I may." She watched her hands flit along Quinn's mid-thigh, until pale hands grabbed her own and pulled them away.

"Personal space," Quinn uttered abruptly.

"Right," Rachel mumbled sheepishly as she looked away. She took a deep breath, eyebrows knitting in confusion as she stood. "I should probably let you…" She trailed off and turned away completely to walk out of the bathroom.

Quinn stared confusedly at the empty doorway. She stood up to close the door, stripped her clothes, and finally hopped into the hot shower awaiting her. It tended to loosen up the properties of the alloy in her legs, making stretching and bending much easier for the rest of the day.

Thoughts of her accident in high school were forced into the back of her mind. She came from a family that repressed the bad, locked it away in the backs of their minds until it grew cobwebs around the corners. It had been nearly three years and no one had brought it up since she had awoken from her coma and finished eight intense weeks of physical therapy to acquaint herself with her new legs. She skipped out on the last two weeks, which were meant to teach her how to control the strength that lay behind them, and well, at this point in life she could have probably used them.

Fog raced her out of the bathroom once her shower ended. With the towel wrapped tightly around her, she walked out to find Rachel surveying her living room. Deciding to leave her to it, Quinn walked into her room and shut her door to lean back against it.

This was officially the weirdest point in her life. She forwent a bra to throw on a t-shit and leggings to quickly get outside of her bedroom to see what Rachel was up to. On the tips of her toes, Quinn walked silently into the living room to find Rachel bent at the waist by her stereo system. Curious to see what she was going to do, Quinn hid by the end of the hallway wall leading into the living room as Rachel pressed buttons on her stereo.

Within seconds loud music blared from the speakers and Rachel jumped back with a yelp. "Quinn!" she called frantically. She spun around to find Quinn standing there staring at her with an exasperated expression and the tension lacing Rachel's body evaporated. "I think I did something."

"I think you did a lot," Quinn grumbled. She walked over to the stereo and adjusted the volume to a level that would keep her neighbors from filing a noise complaint, then glared mildly at Rachel. "Ask next time."

"I was curious," Rachel mumbled, shamefaced.

"That seems to be your motto."

"May I ask you a question, Quinn?" she asked as Quinn began to walk away.

"What?"

Rachel took steps to follow, but halted, wringing her hands together. "Are you still going to kill me?"

Quinn stopped by the threshold of the kitchen, hand braced on the doorway. Her shoulders slumped. "No, I guess I'm not, am I? That wouldn't be the friendly thing to do, after what happened yesterday."

Her tone was mildly mocking, but Rachel couldn't help but grin in happiness as she walked closer. "I—thank you, Quinn." Without warning, she wrapped her arms around Quinn's waist.

Quinn felt her throat clog at the heartfelt thank you she had just received. "Don't ever thank someone for _not_ retiring you," she found herself saying. "That's like, saying thank you to the waiter for _not_ spitting in your drink."

Rachel giggled, and burrowed into the soft cotton of Quinn's shirt. "Okay." She showed no signs of letting go and Quinn lightly placed her hands on Rachel's shoulders.

"Do you…shower?" she asked after a moment. "Or get dirty at all?"

"To your first question: yes, I shower. To your second: I don't excrete sweat or any type of odor. But filth is capable of getting on my person, so daily showers are a must."

Quinn gently pushed her back. "You can shower here then, if you'd like."

"Yes, please," Rachel chirped with a grateful grin.

Quinn set up a shower and left Rachel to it, closing the door and heading toward the kitchen. The sun had begun to rise, and Quinn flicked off the lights in the kitchen to enjoy the natural sunlight that was beginning to stream through the windows.

Deciding not to dwell on how weird her morning was turning out to be, Quinn instead went about preparing breakfast. She grabbed a packet of bacon and two eggs from the refrigerator when her house phone, perched on the far wall near her microwave began to ring. Quinn deposited a plate of four slabs of bacon into the microwave and grabbed the phone. "Hello?"

"Making sure you're still alive."

"Seems so," she sighed, cracking an egg into a pan. "You?"

"My eye looks like I ran face first into a pubic bone, but other than that I'll live."

Quinn felt around her neck at the mention of Puck's injuries. "I'll have to wear concealer for the next few days, but…this is the job, right?"

Puck sighed at the sound of her uncharacteristically weak voice. "You hate it."

"Of course I hate it," Quinn hissed. "I nearly _die_ every time I leave that fucking precinct with a tip." She sighed and rested the phone in the crook of her neck and shoulder as she braced her hands on the counter to lean against them. "Sometimes I just want to move the fuck away from here," she replied snidely.

"Well, shit, if you felt that way why'd you take the job?"

Quinn stared at the wall with a blank face. "Because Sue offered a generous pay that could more than pay for my acting classes, and when I said no to that she threatened to throw my father in prison for extortion."

"Oh, yeah," Puck said with an awkward laugh. "I remember that."

She stood to flip her sunny side up eggs over when the microwave dinged for attention. She rolled her eyes at Puck's silence over the phone and muttered, "Gotta go, Puck. Breakfast is ready."

"Stop being so emo, Q. It's good money and you know I'd never let you die. Sam would probably kill me," he laughed. "Laters."

Quinn hung up the cordless phone and placed it on the counter to open the microwave.

"Umm, Quinn?"

She spun around at the unexpected sound of Rachel's voice, and her jaw dropped to the floor. In the middle of her kitchen stood Rachel, naked and dripping wet, water splashing onto the tiled floors below. Her skin glistened from the sun beaming through the slits of blinds from the window as Rachel just _stood_ there as if this was normal. "I believe you neglected to leave me a towel."

Quinn inhaled deeply for a sense of self control as her eyes felt assaulted with too much information, the lean muscles of Rachel's smooth, tan arms and long legs, the protrusion of her collarbones, the roundness of perky breasts and even perkier nipples, her flat, smooth stomach. Quinn swallowed and looked away. Rachel was completely hairless, everywhere.

"You're dripping onto my floor," Quinn mumbled after a long moment.

Rachel took a hesitant step back and looked down to the water pooling around her feet. "I'm sorry; I didn't meat to. I just need—"

Her rambling knocked Quinn out of her reverie and she breezed past Rachel without a second glance. "Towel, right."

She yanked open her closet door and grabbed a fluffy towel, extending it to Rachel as she looked right past her head. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have eggs cooking."

Rachel grabbed her arm as Quinn stepped away. "Did I do something wrong?"

Quinn's eyebrows dipped in incredulity and a tad bit of sympathy when she was met with confused hurt on Rachel's face. "No," Quinn sighed. "I'm just…weird about nudity."

Rachel made a face, then giggled. "That is weird."

Quinn frowned. "You're weird."

"Then we fit, you and I."

The statement caught Quinn unawares, and she rubbed at the back of her neck, muttered something about her food getting cold and walked back down the hallway, leaving Rachel naked by the closet.

Rachel emerged ten minutes later in the same clothes she had worn yesterday, looking pristine, though her hair was still soggy. "I suppose I'll have to go home soon," she mumbled as she breezed past the kitchen into the living room where Quinn sat on the couch with one foot braced against the table, eating bacon and eggs.

"Your hair's wet," Quinn needlessly informed her. "And it's freezing outside. Do you get sick?"

Rachel shook her head, preoccupied with the stereo system. It was playing a slow song that caught Rachel's interest. "What is the name of this song?"

"_Pretty_ _Wings_," Quinn answered. "Maxwell."

"His falsetto is exquisite," Rachel commented

"Best song from the album."

"You have the entire album? Are you a fan?"

"Kind of."

Rachel briefly turned toward Quinn to say, "I'm a _huge_ fan of Barbra Streisand. Her voice is divine. Have you heard of her?"

Quinn barked out an amused laugh. "Who hasn't?"

She grinned back, thankful to have common ground with Quinn as she turned back to the stereo. Quinn went back to her food, and it wasn't even a minute later when she heard Rachel pick up on the chorus she had learned and begin to sing the song. Her voice was cripplingly gorgeous, and Quinn nearly choked on her food as she sat her plate down. "That bastard," she muttered as she stood up.

Rachel straightened to stare at Quinn. "Is something wrong?"

"You can sing?" Quinn asked. "_Well_? Like, really well?"

"Oh, well, yes, I suppose," Rachel answered, growing shy under the compliment hidden underneath Quinn's questioning. "I only sing at home, but my daddy tells me that my voice is amazing, stunning even."

"I bet he does," Quinn grumbled to herself. She walked out of the room without another word and returned with a pencil and paper. She slammed it on the table and motioned for Rachel to come closer. "Draw something."

"I'm sorry?"

Quinn was beginning to wonder if LeRoy had indulged in his own creation and made Rachel capable of virtually anything. "Draw…" she looked around the room, then her eyes landed on Rachel. "Draw me."

Rachel knelt before the table and picked up the pencil, eying Quinn warily as she sat on the couch in front of her.

She took to drawing and Quinn rested her chin in her hand, watching the tension in Rachel's face as she worked diligently. Quinn couldn't believe there was a time when she was scared that someone like _this_ would actually kill her. She felt ludicrous now, and had to look away after a moment when embarrassment at her own paranoia warmed her face.

"Done!" Rachel announced.

Quinn lifted a skeptical eyebrow and held out a hand for the paper. Rachel bit her lip and handed it to her. "Don't judge," she warned.

Quinn held the paper up, face devoid of emotion as her eyes scanned over the inaccurate scaling and uneven shading. It looked _nothing_ like her, and she grinned. So Rachel wasn't good at everything, and Quinn liked that about her for some reason.

"You _suck_."

"I said don't judge!" Rachel whined. She shot up from the floor and stomped over to Quinn who held the picture out of her reach when Rachel moved to grab it.

Quinn found herself laughing both at the drawing and the indignant pout on Rachel's face. "This _needs_ to be judged, harshly."

The couch dipped as Rachel kneeled on it, and Quinn twisted at the waist to present her shoulder to Rachel as she leaned closer. The paper was crumbling in Quinn's hand, but Rachel seemed to forget about it as she grabbed Quinn's shoulder with a grin and spun her around.

"No, you don't get to go crazy replicant on me," Quinn threatened as she attempted to twist out of Rachel's hold, and Rachel just grinned harder as her hands softly curled around Quinn's shoulders and pushed her into the couch. She threw one leg over Quinn's hips and settled on top of her to prevent Quinn's wild legs from kicking her completely off the couch.

Quinn groaned and threw her head back into the couch cushions. "I hate you."

Rachel giggled. "That's a very strong word." She leaned down, eyes darkening as she regarded Quinn's face, flushed with exertion. The picture fell forgotten to the floor as Rachel swallowed thickly, thighs tightening around Quinn's waist. "Quinn, I—" She didn't know how to continue, and her lips pursed, brow furrowing as she reached down to brush blonde hair from Quinn's face with gentle fingers.

Quinn stiffened, shrugging a shoulder in a not so subtle warning to Rachel to get up.

But Rachel remained where she was, confused and dazed, as she breathed, "I feel weird when I touch you this way."

"We need to get up," Quinn immediately responded. She shrugged out of Rachel's slackened grip and leaned up until they were face to face. Rachel's gaze was wild as it roamed from Quinn's eyes to her nose, down to her lips to linger, before Quinn softly said, "Get up, Rachel."

Reluctantly, Rachel rose from the couch until Quinn had enough room to squeeze out from under her. Quinn's eyes fluttered closed. She inhaled deeply and licked her lips while Rachel watched her from across the couch. Neither of them said a word for a long moment until Rachel stood from the couch to mutter, "I should probably go. My father must be worried sick."

Quinn barely nodded, and Rachel took the long way around the table until she arrived at the door. She fumbled with the doorknob and Quinn finally snapped into motion, rising from the couch to meet Rachel. She leaned past her to unlock the door and a tiny gasp lodged in Rachel's throat at the feel of Quinn against her back. "It's not a bad feeling," Rachel whispered shakily, referencing her earlier words.

Quinn didn't trust herself to say anything, and simply held the door while Rachel walked out, spinning around to face Quinn once she was out of the door, yet unable to look her in the eye. "Thank you for…all of this," Rachel mumbled. "You're a really good friend, and you mean _so_ much to me, Quinn."

"Thank you for saving my life," Quinn replied sincerely.

Rachel looked up with a proud grin. "It was my pleasure."

They shared a brief, awkward hug before Rachel disappeared behind the elevator doors, and Quinn closed herself off in her apartment. She leaned heavily against the door with a nervous swallow, rubbing the tense muscles at the back of her neck as she wondered, not for the first time, what the hell she had gotten herself into.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

* * *

Quinn had ordered take-out and slept the rest of Saturday away. She had missed Sunday church this morning and settled for lounging on the couch in the living room, ignoring how it somehow managed to still smell like Rachel's hair after she had used Quinn's own shampoo. The remote to the TV across the room rested on her gently rising and falling stomach as she caught a rerun of syndicated _Law & Order: SVU_ episodes.

Only, her mind wouldn't turn off and allow her to completely veg out on the couch and enjoy the marathon. Quinn had a bit of an obsessive personality. It had its positives and negatives. Her obsessive personality allowed her to be a straight A student the majority of her school career. Her obsessive personality made her an exceptional blade runner. She always finished every case she started. But when her obsessive personality started to focus on Rachel, Quinn wished on all the stars in the sky that she could just turn her brain off, or find something else to focus on.

Rachel was without a doubt the weirdest being Quinn had ever come into contact with, human or replicant. She was quirky with spurts of randomness that kept Quinn on her toes. She was compassionate and naïve almost to a fault—befriending Quinn despite the fact that Quinn was supposed to retire her. She was too much of everything: nice, trusting, docile—the complete antithesis of Quinn, and she intrigued Quinn, especially since all of those qualities were attributes Rachel _wasn't_ supposed to possess in the first place. But she was 'special', after all.

Quinn rolled her eyes.

She wondered if all replicants were made like Rachel. Rachel had mentioned how replicants before her were constructed of different metal. Quinn wondered if they still felt as soft as Rachel did, looked like she did…under their clothes.

Taking a deep breath, Quinn attempted to look at the situation as objectively as possible. She had seen a woman's naked body before, touched it intimately, had enough knowledge of the female body from both her own and her high school girlfriend to know that anatomically speaking, Rachel came pretty damn close to the real thing, passable. Her body was lean, toned, full where it was supposed to be and trim just the same. It was mind-boggling, but something Quinn was slowly adjusting to. After seeing Rachel literally stripped bare, Quinn had finally come to terms with the fact that Rachel had nothing to hide. That she really just wanted to be friends, _more_ _than_, if the way Rachel had reacted yesterday was any indication.

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose. The fact that Rachel wasn't even _aware_ of what her body's reaction meant put all the pressure on Quinn to handle the situation as delicately as possible…which basically meant kicking Rachel out of her home as quickly as possible before—Quinn shook her head, wondering what the hell she was thinking.

Rachel was a replicant, would terminate in two years, and _was not human_. Except, neither was Quinn anymore, technically.

But that didn't matter. What mattered was that this was entirely too weird and uncomfortable to actually _happen_.

_Law & Order_ slid right into commercial without Quinn even knowing what the case was about and she sighed.

It was no surprise to her when she heard a knock on the door, Rachel's shrill voice muffled as she said, "Quinn? Quinn, are you in there? It's imperative that I speak with you."

Quinn stretched along the length of the couch with a tired yawn, scratching her exposed hipbone where her shirt had ridden up. What was imperative was space between the two of them to cool off Rachel's libido and calm Quinn's thoughts, but that didn't seem to be in the cards, especially with how intertwined they both were in this case.

She opened the door and quickly stepped aside as Rachel barreled through with a concentrated frown on her face. Quinn closed the door and turned around to face Rachel, eyebrows high on her forehead in confused amusement. "Good afternoon to you, too."

"Hi, Quinn," Rachel grumbled, though her less than inviting disposition remained the same. She unbuttoned her coat to reveal a red sweater with a reindeer on it that Quinn frowned at as Rachel placed her coat on the couch. She approached Quinn with hesitation. "We're friends, right?"

"I guess so," Quinn responded carefully.

"And you won't retire me, right? You promised," Rachel rushed out.

"_I_ won't," Quinn answered after a moment.

The implication wasn't lost on Rachel who took a deep inhale to absorb the information, then pushed it to the side. "I've done some research over the internet."

Quinn quirked an eyebrow as an uneasy feeling dipped into the pit of her stomach.

"I asked daddy to buy me a _Cosmo_ magazine," Rachel continued in the deafening silence.

Quinn exhaled audibly. "And?"

Rachel took a deep breath. "I'm eight-six percent sure I'm in love with you."

_Stockholm_ _syndrome_ was the first thought to enter Quinn's mind, and the dread churning in her stomach upped the ante tenfold.

"I—what?" Quinn stammered, flinching at the statement.

"And _Cosmo_ suggested that I stop giving you all the power and take charge."

"Okay, stop," Quinn blurted out suddenly. Her eyes widened in surprise at this entire whirlwind of a situation. "Rachel, this is—no," she continued, unsure of what she was even trying to say.

Rachel's shoulders slumped at the rejection. "What's 'no'?" she whimpered.

Quinn stepped forward and braced her hands heavily on Rachel's shoulders. They were soft and Quinn found herself curling her fingers into them unconsciously. "Listen to me very carefully. You have been through…hell and back in the past several weeks, okay? You've found out you aren't human, you've gone to jail, you _killed_ someone," Quinn said gravely, deciding to use Rachel's terminology to convey the severity of the situation.

"I know that," Rachel mumbled, eyes downcast as her brow knotted.

"And through all of that _I_ was the one constant presence, your only friend," Quinn continued. "It's…natural to feel connected to me. But I—sweetie, you don't _love_ me." Her voice tinged on desperation as she silently pleaded with Rachel in her mind to take back the sentiment. "We're friends," Quinn whispered. "You care about me, but you don't love me, okay?"

Rachel's gaze remained focused on her feet as Quinn's grip on her shoulders flexed then fell away. They stood there for a long moment, until Quinn ran a hand through her hair in frustration at Rachel's silence and walked past her.

"I'm watching TV," Quinn muttered as she gestured to the flat screen across the room. She walked toward the kitchen, calling awkwardly over her shoulder, "Do you want a drink or something?"

"You're wrong," Rachel murmured to herself. Her hands clenched into fists that shook at her side as she quickly spun around and followed Quinn into the kitchen. "You're so wrong about _everything_!" she yelled.

The surprising bass in her voice shook Quinn's hand and knocked over a cup in the cabinet. She grabbed it with a firmer grip in determination not to be rattled by Rachel just because she was stronger. She slammed the cup on the counter and turned around to face Rachel. "Keep. Your voice. Down."

"It is incredibly rude and insensitive of you to just decide _for_ me how I feel about you," Rachel replied immediately.

"What is this, _Cosmo_ talking?" Quinn spat. Confrontation she could do, was built for. Sitting around and discussing feelings was the dangerous territory.

"Yes," Rachel decided. "It _is_ _Cosmo_ talking. And it was right. I'm not just going to allow you to discount my feelings just because I'm a replicant and 'can't feel'."

Quinn scoffed. "It has nothing to do with whether or not you can feel."

"Then what is it about?"

Her arms folded across her chest on instinct, in defense. "You don't just _fall_ in love with someone overnight. It's not that simple."

"It is!" Rachel insisted. "I've researched it. Have you?"

Quinn shot her a look of incredulity because, who the hell researches what love is? People normally just _know_. Humans just know, replicants like Rachel were the only ones who would need to research the definition of love.

"It's physical and psychological," Rachel explained when Quinn didn't respond. "It's the fact that I think about you all the time, even when we're not together."

Quinn shifted uncomfortably to lean back against the counter and feign nonchalance as Rachel ticked off a list on her fingers.

"The fact that I _care_ about you as much as I do. I didn't know what that was before, but I get it now."

"We're just _friends_," Quinn reiterated.

Rachel inhaled deeply, licked her lips and took a step closer. "The fact that I-I _like_ touching you, and I like when you touch me."

Quinn didn't have a response for that, and her lips pressed tightly together as her eyes tightened.

"I _like_ when we hug," Rachel continued emphatically. "And I feel—I felt really _weird_ yesterday when I was on top of you and you _knew_ that I was aroused."

Her throat bobbed with a tight swallow as her gaze skirted away from the open sincerity pouring out of Rachel's eyes. "You just got a little excited because we were play fighting," she whispered. "That's all."

"It was sexual arousal because I'm attracted to you—I didn't understand that yesterday. But I went home and talked to my father—"

"You told LeRoy about _that_?" Quinn asked, aghast as her mouth hung open slightly in horror.

Rachel shrugged a shoulder sheepishly. "I ask my father about everything I don't understand, Quinn. This was no different."

"_I created her to live the most fulfilling human life possible, detective Fabray. The act of sex is essential to human interaction and building intimate, trusting relationships, and I would be remiss to ignore that. Wouldn't you agree?"_

LeRoy's words from the heated argument Quinn had shared with him several weeks back sprang to her mind unbidden in an instant. He had informed her that Rachel was built for this, sexual arousal and intimacy because he wanted her to make long lasting and meaningful connections with people, _a_ person. Quinn reasoned in a way that was what every parent wanted, for their child to not be alone in the world. But what enraged her was that fact that LeRoy had built a replicant who thrived on affection and contact like humans though Rachel would only live for four years. It wasn't fair for Rachel to expect Quinn to fall in love with her when she was going to simply stop functioning in two years tops.

Her nails curled into her arms as tension laced her body. "Rachel," Quinn sighed. She scratched the back of her head, unsure what to even say.

"I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you," Rachel reiterated. "I took a quiz in _Cosmo_—it asked me questions." She walked closer until she had to crane her neck upwards a fraction to roam her eyes over Quinn's face. "It asked if I thought you were beautiful," she breathed. "Actually, it asked if I thought you were a hunk, but well—that's what they use to describe men, so I added my own word."

Quinn gurgled out a laugh, shaking her head in disbelief of this situation as she purposefully avoided Rachel's gaze.

"I answered 'yes'," Rachel told her. "I answered 'yes' to constantly thinking about you, and I answered 'yes' to the question of whether or not I like your hugs."

"Being with someone is more than just _hugging_," Quinn muttered darkly.

Rachel's brow furrowed as she nodded. "Yes, right. There is kissing also, which is why I said I'm eighty-six percent sure I'm in love with you. _Cosmo_ informed me that physical compatibility is very important in a romantic relationship, so if you could just kiss me—"

"_No_," Quinn interrupted, posture growing rigid against the counter. "I'm not going there with you."

"Why?" Rachel asked quietly. "Is it because I'm a replicant?"

"It's because _you don't love me_." Quinn slid out of the lessening space between herself and Rachel and walked out of the kitchen. Her breathing grew labored under the confusion she felt as she walked down the hallway and into her bedroom. She landed on her bed and braced her head in her hands, thoughts racing too quickly through her head.

"This isn't about me. This is about you, isn't it, Quinn?"

Quinn sighed and looked over toward Rachel standing at her door. Quinn's face was unexpressive, lips drawn into a thin line.

"_I_ am well aware of my own feelings, Quinn, and you have no right to state otherwise."

Rachel's voice had grown grave, pitching higher in anger, and Quinn straightened her shoulders to sit more upright on the bed.

"You're projecting," Rachel accused, pointing a finger at Quinn as her eyes began to glisten, voice shaking. "I'm not the one who isn't in love, _you_ are."

A tear slid down Rachel's cheek, and Quinn stood from the bed and began walking toward her. "Can you just stop crying?" Quinn asked evenly.

"Don't you care about me?" Rachel whimpered once Quinn was within touching distance.

Uncomfortable with the question being directed toward her, Quinn flippantly shrugged her shoulders. "I said I wouldn't retire you," she explained. "I got you out of lockup in two hours flat, allow you into my home—I wouldn't do all of that if I didn't."

Rachel's chin trembled as she stared up at Quinn in confusion. "Then what's wrong? Why don't you love me? Why won't you just kiss me?"

"I don't know what you want me to say here," Quinn whispered. "It's not that simple for humans. I can't just decide one day that I love you and want to be with you forever."

Rachel sniffled, her tone sardonic as she asked, "If I was human would you love me?"

If Rachel was human at least she'd probably live for more than two more years. "I don't know," Quinn replied vaguely.

Her voice was flat and monotone, and Rachel shook her head. "It's funny, really. You and all of your blade runner colleagues treat me as I'm so abnormal and non-human—"

"I don't treat you like that anymore," Quinn shot back, incensed and offended.

"Don't you?" Rachel challenged. "You stood there in that kitchen and argued with me about my own feelings for you as if I'm incapable of feeling and _knowing_ what I feel."

"You had to research it," Quinn bit out, eyes tightening as she glared down at Rachel, angry at Rachel for barging into her apartment, her _life_ and getting Quinn caught up and confused about everything she had ever believed in. "I hardly call that knowing what you feel."

"I did have to research it," Rachel conceded with a swallow. "I've never—arousal was a foreign concept." Her shoulders shrugged in the tight, stitched sweater she was wearing and Quinn's eyes briefly traced the roundness of them before they snapped resolutely back to giant brown eyes. "I know what a lesbian is—a woman who is sexually and emotionally attracted to women, dates them exclusively. But what I felt when I was on top of you yesterday, I didn't know it was arousal until I talked to my father and researched it, and read _Cosmo_. But I know now, Quinn, and you can't just simply toss my feelings aside because _you're_ the one who doesn't know how to feel."

Her statement shocked Quinn into taking a brief step back, blinking rapidly in surprise at Rachel's audacity to speak so candidly and recklessly.

"And now I'm angry with you," Rachel muttered, brow furrowed as her gaze dropped from Quinn's. "And I do not wish to be around you right now. Have a good day, detective Fabray."

When Quinn looked up, Rachel was gone. And the faint clicking of her apartment door shutting could barely be heard over _Law & Order_.

* * *

"Quinn. Quinn? Yo, Quinn!" Puck sucked his teeth. "You see? This is the shit I'm talking about," he muttered.

Sam nodded. "Normally she isn't this spacey."

"Unless she's obsessing over something, right?"

Quinn blinked, lazily dragging her eyes from the window she had been staring out of to Puck, then she pointedly rolled them. "I can _hear_ you."

Puck's eyes crinkled in amusement. "Good, then order."

They were at a bar and grill for a late dinner on a Sunday night. Quinn had originally agreed to meet up with her best friends to give her brain something else to chew on other than the fact that Rachel was royally pissed at her. But that didn't seem to be working.

Mildly embarrassed, Quinn cleared her throat and flipped through the menu. "A shrimp-steak sirloin, please, medium rare."

The waiter's smile was friendly and a touch amused as he nodded and collected their menus.

Puck extended his arms and pretended to fly once the waiter left as Sam furrowed his brow and put on his best Captain Kirk impersonation, "Worlds are conquered, galaxies destroyed...but a woman is always a woman," he muttered lowly.

Quinn's tongue dug into her cheek in annoyance as she watched the two of them laugh at each other's antics. "I'm not _that_ bad."

"You're a total space cadet today."

"Who even says that anymore?" Sam asked, and Puck shoved him in the shoulder.

"People still say that."

"Losers, maybe," Quinn joined in with a mirthful grin.

"So, anyway, ask Sam how much the bass he caught when we went fishing today weighed."

Quinn looked from Puck to Sam whose head now hung in what Quinn guessed to be shame. Her eyebrow rose in curiosity. "How much?"

He grumbled something that Quinn didn't catch and her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Four pounds!" Puck blurted out. "Mine weighed six and half." He hooked his arm around Sam's head and drew him closer to roughly rub his knuckles into blonde hair in a noogie that Quinn, to this day, didn't see the fun in.

Sam pushed Puck away and shook his hair out. He had perfected the boy band hair styling in high school and knew exactly how to make each strand of hair fall back into place without touching it. "Chill, dude."

Puck shrugged and grabbed his glass of soda, pushing the straw aside to put his lips on the glass. His eyes darted to the left where a waitress stood with her back to them, short skirt riding up as she bent over. Puck's eyes widened as he nudged Sam. "Look at this one."

Quinn turned around to what the two boys were now ogling over, then turned back to them with a frown. "Why don't you guys ever do that with me?" she asked.

Puck blinked, surprised at the question, and peeled his eyes away from the waitress to stare at Quinn. "So, we're allowed to acknowledge that you boned a chick for five months back in high school, then?"

Quinn shot him a dirty look.

"Okay," Sam cut in. He tilted his head to the side and mumbled, "Look over there. Hot, right?"

"Oh, I would so do her," Puck muttered.

Quinn glanced at the short brunette winding through the crowded restaurant for a long moment. "She's really pretty."

Puck groaned. "You see? That's why we don't include you."

"What—am I supposed to talk about how much I want to sleep with her?" Quinn shot back, and Puck and Sam simply nodded their heads. She scooted back further in the booth she was sitting on and folded her arms across her chest. "Whatever."

"What about that one?" Puck asked Sam as a blonde breezed right past their table.

Sam's lips twisted up as he gave it some thought. "Five out of ten."

"Come on, dude, she was at least a seven."

As they argued over the ranking of the woman who had passed them without a backwards glance, Quinn sunk further into her seat, uncomfortable with what had just transpired. It was kind of unsettling how Puck and Sam could drone on about how attracted they were to women yet all Quinn could muster up was a vague comment about the beauty of the woman she could see, and not a possible attraction that could be hidden. Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe she didn't know how to feel.

Except, Quinn knew what arousal was. Had felt it before, it wasn't a foreign concept. But at the same time it wasn't something she always welcomed, either, especially if her arousal presented itself via the most human-like replicant in existence.

It shouldn't have been this way. She shouldn't have been sitting in a booth while out to dinner with her best friends with the mental image of Rachel, naked and dripping the way she was yesterday, in her mind right now, _ever._ But it was the side effect of having Rachel admit to being in love with her, it had to be.

"And how was _your_ day, Quinn?" Sam asked with a sneer in Puck's direction as he rubbed his head. He must have just received another noogie while Quinn wasn't paying attention.

Quinn sighed as she felt the back of her neck grow hot. "Uneventful."

"Ready for work tomorrow?" Puck asked.

"Am I ever?"

She scooted back and Puck removed his elbows from the table as the waiter gingerly placed their food down with a smile before walking away. Quinn eyed the steaming grilled steak on her plate with shrimp littered across the top of it, and grabbed her utensils wrapped in a cloth napkin.

Absentmindedly, she wondered if Rachel had ever tried meat, or if she had simply decided from the get-go that eating animals was too 'inhumane.' Quinn had grown up on meat, was an avid lover of bacon, and couldn't imagine living a life without the flavors of bacon, steak, burgers, and chicken, and by association, eggs, yogurt, milk—the list could go on.

Rachel was weird.

Not in the sense of just being a vegetarian. But in the sense that she was a replicant who actually _cared_ enough to declare herself a vegetarian, as if she were human. Quinn's brow furrowed in confusion as she sighed.

..._but a woman is always a woman_, indeed. Maybe.

"So, how's my mistress doing?"

Her grip around the knife in her right hand tightened as she cut Puck a sharp look.

A knowing, shit eating grin split across his face as he threw his hands up in mock surrender. "How's _Rachel_ doing?"

Sam looked up from his plate, a fry dangling from his lips that he slurped up as if it were a noodle and gulped it down. "That girl who's a part of your case?"

"She's fine," Quinn cut in before Puck could answer Sam's question.

"How do you know about her?" Puck asked Sam after a moment.

"Because _you_ always bring her up," Quinn hissed.

Puck shrugged a shoulder and turned to Sam more fully. "The pleasure model that Quinn hasn't tapped yet? Yeah, that one."

"Pleasure model," Sam mumbled to himself. "She's a replicant? Holy shit."

"Keep your voice down," Quinn hissed through gritted teeth. "Like I _said_ a while ago, she's a part of the case Puck and I are working on."

Lips parted in muted shock, Sam looked from Quinn to Puck. Then he grinned. "Tell me you've…you know," he mumbled, nudging Puck.

"I can't!" Puck cried incredulously. "Quinn's been c-blocking hardcore."

"Or maybe she doesn't like you," Quinn replied mildly.

"And how would you know?"

Quinn scratched at her eyebrow, eyes trained on the untouched steak on her plate. She picked her utensils up to give another go at eating as she pointedly ignored the question.

Puck's head craned to the side in interest at her silence. She was often proud and combative, never one to turn down an argument. His eyes narrowed. "'Sup, Q?"

"Nothing," Quinn mumbled, taking a bit of her steak. It was juicy, chewy, and her eyes may have fluttered in pleasure at how good it was.

"You're a terrible liar," Puck accused, and Sam laughed in agreement.

It was true. Quinn wasn't that great of a liar, but throughout her life most people had failed to call her out on it. Whether it was people in high school who were afraid of her, significant others who were too infatuated with her and wanted nothing more to simply believe everything she said, or her family members during holiday gathers who were too tipsy to even _care_ when she lied and embellished her much less than perfect life.

She sighed and sat her utensils down beside her plate. Whenever she had problems of the romantic nature she shared them with her friends and vice versa. Lately she was lacking in the romantic department, and kind of felt reluctant to share this, but a part of her flat out felt like an ass for throwing Rachel's feelings under the bus just because she was uncomfortable.

"Okay," Quinn exhaled resolutely. "Rachel doesn't like you. She said she's in love with me."

"_In_ _love_?" Puck spat in disbelief.

"Keep your damn voice down," Quinn shushed.

"But-but they can't—"

"That's what I've been trying to tell myself, but let's face it: if any replicant could ever love someone it would be Rachel." Quinn ran a hand through her hair in frustration. "She's driving me crazy."

"The girl can't be that bad," Puck responded.

Quinn flicked up an eyebrow. "No? She's polite but has _no_ etiquette for social situations. I mean, she walked around my apartment naked because I forgot to leave a towel in the bathroom for her."

Puck gawked openly at the mental image he had conjured up in his brain. "And that's a problem?"

"I'm not gonna lie, I'd love to have that problem with women," Sam admitted, and Puck high fived him, telling Quinn, "Shit, drop her off at my place next time if you can't appreciate a naked woman in your apartment."

"It isn't that," Quinn mumbled. "It's just—she's a replicant, you know?"

Puck shrugged. "Not like she's an animal. We can fuck, they can fuck, ergo, we can fuck them. Am I right?"

"Right you are, bro," Sam laughed.

"You guys are gross," Quinn groaned. "Are you at all capable of explaining a single concept without equating it to sex?"

Puck scratched at his chin as he thought the question over. "Nope. So, you've tapped that, then?"

"_No_," Quinn spat forcefully.

"Well, one of us has to," Puck shot back.

Sam bit his lip. "I don't know about this," he admitted after a moment. "I mean, she _is_ a replicant."

Puck scoffed. "You were totally into it a minute ago. The only reason 'you don't know' now is because Quinn's the one who's gonna tap that."

"I'm _not_ tapping _anything_."

Puck looked affronted. "Not with that attitude."

Sam nodded. "Good."

Quinn jabbed the knife in her hand in his direction. "This isn't about you or whatever reservations you have about me actually having a _life_."

His jaw dropped at the accusation. "I'm not trying to dictate your life here."

"All I know is I'd totally spank that if I had the chance," Puck chimed in, concluding the argument as Quinn ducked her head to hide her burning face with her hair brushing over her shoulders. She took a deep breath to expel her curious thoughts of Rachel naked once again and ate the rest of her meal in silence.

* * *

Sue dropped a stack of papers onto her desk. "I acquired the names of the replicants that attacked you last Friday."

"One was named Finn Hudson," Quinn supplied.

"The other one was Mike Chang—the entertainer." Sue sat on her thousand dollar leather chair and swiveled around to place her elbows on her desk, glancing down her nose at Quinn and Puck. "Now, I was informed that Finn Hudson was shot several times."

Quinn nodded. "Yes, by Rachel Berry." Her gaze turned confident at the look of muted shock on Sue's face. It felt odd, pleading a replicant's case when her job was to simply do away with them and move on to the next. But Rachel had saved her life and for that, Quinn wasn't going to take Rachel's and would do anything she could to change Sue's mind about retiring her.

"I see," Sue muttered. She leaned back in her seat to steeple her fingers together in front of her mouth. "Has she given you any information?"

"No."

"Then why is she still walking this Earth?"

Animosity narrowed Quinn's eyes as she sat forward in her seat. "With all due respect, I've explained why already." She reached into the pocket of her coat to produce the same set of pictures she collected from the shoe box in the hotel Friday and placed them on Sue's desk. "Besides, she's not an important matter right now. These are."

Sue reached forward to grab the pictures, expression bored as she flicked through them. "What's this—the Fabray clan?"

"They are pictures of several different families," Quinn answered with barely contained sarcasm dripping from her voice. "I found them at the hotel room the replicants are staying in." She glanced at the photos, then back at Sue. "I have a theory."

Sue scoffed, twisting her chair back and forth. "Let's hear it."

"We know that the kill switch is used to keep the replicants from eventually learning more complex thoughts, emotions," she prefaced. "I think they're already learning. They are close to termination, after all. Finn Hudson asked about his age."

"Why?" Sue interrupted, sitting up in her seat in interest. "They can already calculate their own ages; we know that."

Quinn nodded. "They can. And I don't know why he asked me. All I know is that he was conscious of his age. And I think it's safe to say the remaining two—"

"Three."

Quinn and Puck swiveled around to find Santana standing in the doorway, arms crossed as she leaned back against the open door. "The remaining three."

Quinn's gaze hardened. "The remaining three," she conceded quietly. "I think it's safe to say that they're all aware of their termination dates." Her brow furrowed instantly. Bewilderment at whether or not Rachel knew of her future termination flooded through Quinn's mind. Rachel was a very much live, in the present type of…replicant, but Quinn had reasoned it was because she was supposed to retire Rachel soon and Rachel wanted to make the most of her time active as possible. Now she wondered if Rachel knew of her termination date at all; she had never brought it up.

"Why don't you put that skin-job you're fraternizing with to good use and see what she knows about this," Sue ordered.

Quinn bit her lip in uncertainty, leaning back in her seat. She wasn't sure how much Rachel would know about the off-Earth replicants, and possibly more importantly, Rachel was still pissed off with her.

"Until then, we don't know why these idiots are back on Earth. What we _do_ know is soon it won't matter because we have three more to retire. And we will retire them all," Sue promised. "Soon."

Quinn's entire face twitched but remained impassive as Sue picked up her ringing phone. Puck nudged her gently, and she turned to find him frowning in sympathy at her. She shrugged it off, uncomfortable, and faced Sue as she got off the phone.

"Santana." Sue's eyes cut to her by the door. "Take a lunch break. Q, Puck? Turns out Hiram finally woke up from that coma. Thought he'd be a vegetable for sure. Anyway, I want you guys to go down to the hospital and question him."

"Later, honeys," Santana sing-songed in a mocking tone as she strolled out of the office.

Quinn's jaw shifted back and forth in annoyance. "Why isn't she doing anything?"

"Because I don't trust the two of you anymore," Sue decided flippantly. "I'm keeping you busy and in my line of sight at all times. So, settle in ladies, because you're my whipping boys now. And I don't mean that it its traditional definition. I mean, if you screw this mission up because you've turned to the dark side…I'll whip you." She grinned crookedly. "Well, what do you know? Maybe that _is _the traditional definition."

* * *

Puck slowed to a stop at the red traffic light beaming down on them. He leaned forward in his seat and adjusted his seatbelt to change the radio station. "Can't believe I'm on the naughty list now because of you."

Quinn scoffed, chin in her hand as she gazed out of the car window. "Get over it."

They were halfway to the hospital in downtown Lima during lunch hour traffic that was only serving to mount their joint frustration at their jobs. "Didn't think Hiram was going to wake up," Puck replied honestly after a moment. "Been days."

"I'm kind of glad he did. It'd be nice to fully know that Rachel didn't strangle him, and to find out what the replicant that did said to him."

"How's our mistress doing anyway?"

Quinn rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't know. She's upset with me."

Puck laughed as he looked for his blind spot and changed lanes. "What'd you do?"

"I kind of brushed off her feelings," Quinn admitted, biting her lip guiltily.

He flicked on his signal light for a right turn and slowed to allow another car to pass. "That doesn't sound like something you'd do at all," he teased.

"Not all of us had fantasies of sleeping with replicants."

"Key word 'had'. Are you saying you 'has' them now?"

She giggled without meaning to, remembering the email Sam had sent her months ago of a bunny holding a balloon by the string with its mouth and a cutesy caption that read, _I can has hugs now_?

"Shut up, Puck."

Puck glided smoothly into a parking spot and killed the engine. "Me thinks yes."

"Me thinks mind your business, and lets focus on our job."

Hiram was still in the intensive care wing on the third floor, "On the left was what the desk receptionist said," Quinn mumbled. She and Puck rounded the corner to find the room they were looking for, with a worried Rachel Berry standing beside it.

Quinn slowed down as Puck passed by her with a broad grin. "'Sup, girl? Fancy meeting you here."

Rachel's gaze coasted from Puck to Quinn walking toward them then settled firmly on Puck. She smiled. "Good afternoon, Noah."

Quinn sighed.

"Heard Quinn's being kind of an ass."

"Puck," Quinn growled.

"She was a bit hurtful yesterday," Rachel admitted.

"Can you give us a minute and go talk to the victim, please?" Quinn asked Puck.

Puck reached into the pocket of his coat and grabbed his pen and pad. "If Quinn keeps being mean you know who to call." He scribbled down his number on a piece of paper and Quinn snatched it before it even got to Rachel's hand, balled it up and shoved it in her pocket.

Puck chuckled quietly to himself and pushed the door to Hiram's room open, closing it behind him.

Silence reigned between them, and Quinn used the opportunity to take in Rachel's fidgety, nervous, uncharacteristically closed off posture. Her arms were folded across her chest, her legs loosely crossed at the ankle as she glanced down at the sterile tiled floors.

Quinn instantly remembered that LeRoy and Hiram were married. That, technically, Hiram was Rachel's…father? And that maybe this was all just weird as shit for her. "Are you okay?"

"About what, exactly?" Rachel asked quietly. "The fact that I have an 'almost father' who's in the other room and I don't really know what to say to him, or the fact that the love of my life has the nerve to stand in front of me and inquire about my well-being after she said she isn't in love with me?"

"Rachel, stop." Quinn looked around them to ensure they were alone before taking a step forward. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't say the opposite either."

"Honestly, I don't know what I feel," Quinn admitted lowly. "I didn't go into this thinking that I would have feelings for you at all aside from mild dislike."

Rachel's chin trembled as she turned away. "Well, at least you're honest."

Quinn rubbed a hand roughly down her cheek. "You're being selfish right now, and your age is showing."

"I'm twenty years old," Rachel defended.

"No, you're two years old, and right now you're acting like a child who's throwing a tantrum because she didn't get her way."

"I'm heartbroken," Rachel whined, whipping around to face Quinn. "All I want to do is hug you, and kiss you, and make love to you—"

"How do you even know what that is?" Quinn asked, brow furrowing in suspicion.

Rachel shrugged a shoulder. "I watched an educational documentary entitled _Erotica 2: Naughty Brunette Needs a Spanking_."

Quinn felt her face inflame with heat as her cheeks flushed red. "I—never mind. We'll discuss that later. Just—stay away from things like that. They aren't good for you. And listen, I really need to interview Hiram right now. Are you okay?"

Rachel nodded sullenly. "I'm fine." She waved a hand toward the door. "You're free to do your job, detective Fabray. It's what you're good at, after all."

"Apparently not, if I can't retire you," Quinn grumbled to herself as she opened the door and stepped inside. She closed it behind her and took in her surroundings. LeRoy was standing diligently at who Quinn assumed to be Hiram's right side, holding his hand while Puck stood over Hiram, murmuring questions.

She stepped further into the room and cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. Hiram Berry barely lifted his head, and Quinn smiled disarmingly. "Hello, Mr. Berry. I'm detective Fabray." She gestured toward Puck. "This is my partner and we're working to find the replicant who strangled you."

"It was Finn," Puck told her with a crooked smirk. "Rachel already took care of that, wouldn't you say?"

"That's what I wanted to discuss," LeRoy stated from across the room. He gingerly sat Hiram's hand down to stride around the bed over to Quinn. "I really don't appreciate how you've put my daughter in the line of fire like that, detective Fabray. She looks to you as a friend, someone who will keep her safe, and though reluctant to accept this newfound friendship, I've allowed her to foster one with you because she's taken a particular…_liking_…to you."

The implication of his statement was clear coupled with his sentence inflection and the fact that Rachel had told Quinn that she tells her father everything. Quinn rubbed at the back of her warming neck as her eyes cut to the wall across the room.

"Please try a little harder to ensure that my daughter doesn't _die_ just because she wants to be your friend."

"With all due respect, sir, your daughter is a grown woman," Quinn replied evenly, vaguely feeling like a hypocrite. "I cannot control what she does or where she goes, which is why she ended up where she was Friday. I protect her to the best of my ability _when she is in my presence_, as a _friend_ should."

The door creaked open behind them and everyone swiveled around to find Rachel closing it behind her. "Is everything all right in here? I detected elevated stress patterns in your voices."

"Everything is fine," LeRoy stated before anyone else could. "Detective Fabray and I were just having a friendly chat, that's all."

"Though I'm only here to talk with your husband," Quinn replied as she slipped out of that conversation and walked over to Hiram. He looked relatively healthy, if only a little fatigued, and Quinn guessed he would be going home soon. "Good afternoon, sir. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions as well. Then my partner and I will be out of your hair for good."

Hiram's eyes closed in what Quinn guessed was relief as he nodded.

"Now, you're certain Finn Hudson—tall, kind of husky, white, brunette—was the replicant that strangled you?"

Hiram nodded.

"What is your job at Schuester Corporation, sir?"

"I already answered that question," LeRoy asserted.

Quinn's gaze flicked across the bed to LeRoy. "Standard procedure."

"Eyes," Hiram rasped. He broke into a fit of coughs and Rachel quickly stood from her seat. "Shall I alert the nurse?"

LeRoy waved her down. "He just needs water, sweetheart." He grabbed the glass of water on the table beside him and guided the straw to Hiram's lips.

Rachel folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the far wall.

Hiram collapsed back onto the bed with a gasp. "All I do is eyes," he continued. "Just the eyes."

Quinn nodded gravely. "Did Finn Hudson say anything to you, sir?"

Hiram shook his head. "Not Finn, no. The other one—he—"

"Did he give a name?"

"Sebastian," Hiram whispered. "Asked about longevity, wanted to know kill switch dates."

Quinn casted a sideways glance to Puck. "Is there anything else of importance that you feel we need to know, sir?"

Hiram opened his mouth to speak then broke out into another fit of coughs, and LeRoy stood with an abrupt bark of, "I think that's enough for now, detective Fabray. We'll call you if Hiram has more to say."

Quinn glared at him from across the bed as she placed her pen and pad back into the jacket of her pocket. "Have a good day, everyone. Stay safe." She nodded in Rachel's direction on her way out the door.

"Well, your theory was right," Puck said once they were out of ear shot. "They're obsessed with their kill switch dates."

"They are," Quinn murmured. "But I don't know what that means."

"Who cares?" Puck said. "All we need to do is stay by the phone and wait for that hotel manager to call us."

Quinn stopped and held out a hand for Puck to stop as well as she turned to look at him. "It's been three days and he hasn't called."

"You think he's dead?"

"Quinn?"

She casted a glance over her shoulder at the sound of her name and saw Rachel walking toward them. Quinn turned around fully. "May I help you?"

Rachel recoiled slightly at the tone of her voice. "Can I go with you?" Before Quinn could even answer, Rachel's posture straightened, shoulders rolling back. "I mean, I would like to accompany you and Noah," she declared more assertively and walked between Quinn and Puck to lead the way to the elevator.

"Fucking _Cosmo_," Quinn muttered to herself, shoving Puck as he casted amused, raised eyebrow looks between her and Rachel.


	8. Chapter 8

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

**A/N:** Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the reviews, well wishes, and kind words. I always just write what interests me and hope that it at least interests a couple of other people—I never really expect to receive as many reviews as I do, but they're very much appreciated.

I feel kind of bad for making this chapter short, but it serves its own purpose. Also, this should be over…relatively soon. Don't know how soon because my plans for chapters are always subject to change. I'm definitely trying to finish this up before fall semester begins because I don't want to be writing this during school. So, just a head's up!

Lastly, shout out to the anon who brought up the ice skating line. Your review was adorable and made me laugh. No promises on actual ice skating since it was just a throwaway line (there's a Brittana joke in there somewhere). Okay, okay, now I'm done. Enjoy!

* * *

Quinn didn't have a hat, but if she did she'd probably have to serve it to herself grilled.

That was all she could think about as her hands swam in scalding bubbled water. She grabbed the last slippery plate at the bottom of the sink, scrubbing it clean. The only sound in the kitchen was water sloshing around, but Quinn knew Rachel was there, behind her, probably staring at her.

Having someone there with her was kind of nice and, dare Quinn actually venture, tranquil. It was certainly less lonely than coming home alone to a sink full of dishes, though Rachel was eerily quiet.

Quinn casted a sideways glance to find Rachel sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her heatedly. The slight warmth Quinn felt encase her bones wasn't entirely unwelcomed as she playfully called over her shoulder, "You really _aren't_ human, are you?"

Rachel blinked and seemed to snap out of whatever trance she was in as she recoiled slightly. "Is it possible to be too aroused?" she murmured after a moment.

Quinn busied herself by reaching into the sink to pluck the stopper from the drain. "Is that all you think about now or something?"

"I'm curious."

"While we're on the subject," Quinn continued, talking over the rushing water from the faucet she was using to rinse suds off her dishes, "don't watch any more porn."

Dark eyebrows knitted together in confusion at the foreign term. "Porn?"

Pale cheeks burned with a darkening blush as Quinn ducked her head and took a deep breath. "Erotica 2? Naughty Brunette Needs a Spanking?"

"Yes, I'm familiar. And that constitutes as…porn?" The word tasted decidedly acidic on her tongue, and Rachel's face scrunched up as she said it. "I prefer the term educational documentary."

"I'm sure you do," Quinn drawled sarcastically.

Rachel rested her elbow on the table, chin in her hand as Quinn turned to lean back against the sink and face her. "Do humans not watch porn? If not, why do people make it?"

"Some people watch, like Puck."

Rachel grinned in amusement.

"But it's not something everyone does. And it's _definitely_ not something people tell other people about."

"Have you ever watched porn, Quinn?" Rachel asked, eyes widened as if to take in information as she gazed innocuously at Quinn.

"Possibly." Not wanting to reveal more, Quinn spun back around toward the cabinets and opened one to grab a glass.

"I have no reference for sex," Rachel said in defense for her porn watching. "I have no memories of it."

"That's because you're a virgin, so I assume," Quinn mumbled with a frown, wondering why LeRoy would create a replicant that would desire sex yet give her nothing to draw knowledge from. Shrugging off the thought, Quinn's head lolled to the side where a proud bottle of bourbon rested in the corner on the counter. It smelled like her father and nostalgia would always tickle her olfactory like now as she popped it open and poured herself a glass. "Want some?"

The strong stench reached Rachel's nose and she perked up at the novelty of it. "What is it?"

Quinn sauntered over and Rachel's gaze dropped curiously to her hips until rising once again to meet her eyes. "Scotch—alcohol."

The glass was gingerly taken in Rachel's grip and lowered for inspection. "I've never had alcohol before," Rachel mused.

She watched Rachel speculate about what was in front of her for a moment longer then prompted, "Try it."

Dark eyes squinted up at Quinn. "You aren't trying to poison me, are you?"

"That _would_ be easier than shooting you," Quinn admitted, only half teasing as she leaned back against the wall, lolling her head to the left to face Rachel. "I'm not trying to kill you, no. Think of it as…helping you gain experience."

The powerful smell tickled Rachel's nose as she brought the glass to her lips, and she grinned, widely.

Quinn's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"You said 'kill', like, you actually think of me as human now," Rachel mumbled warmly. The lip of the glass parted her own lips and she drew a quick sip of scotch into her mouth. Her eyes clenched shut almost immediately, burning as she drew the cup back and began to cough profusely.

Quinn smiled.

"I think you _are_ trying to kill me," Rachel wheezed with a garbled voice as she reared back in her seat with a deep, needless exhale. "Holy…crap."

"Give it back, then," Quinn commanded softly.

Rachel stood with a frown of betrayal and walked the glass back over to Quinn. "Why do you drink such _horrid_ liquids?"

Quinn shrugged a shoulder. "It reminds me of my father."

Interest sparked bright in Rachel's eyes as Quinn tipped her head back a fraction to partially expose her throat. There was still light, barely there bruising that looked more like shadows than anything and with a confused furrow of her brow Rachel licked her lips. "May I see a picture of your parents?"

Quinn's jaw tightened as the room temperature liquid burned with a sharp kick all the way down. Her head tilted toward the living room on the other side of the kitchen. "You probably already have. Pictures are in there."

Rachel didn't wait for an invitation to scavenge through Quinn's apartment and walked out of the kitchen promptly.

A heavy sigh sifted through Quinn's chest as she leaned heavily back against the wall, wondering just what the hell she was doing. She could lose her job over this—not that she _cared_, but the money was nice, and it was the principle of the matter, the fact that she wasn't supposed to be fraternizing with a replicant.

"These two people look like you," Rachel mumbled to herself as her gaze ran over every square inch of the photo she walked back into the kitchen with.

"My parents," Quinn sighed. The cup of swirling scotch looked like captured sunlight that Quinn brought to her lips and consumed as she spied the inquisitive quirk of Rachel's lips.

"What was your home life like?"

Quinn took a long sip. "I kind of felt like an outcast. Maybe black sheep is the more appropriate term."

Rachel frowned. Her eyes rose from the picture to look at Quinn with open sympathy. "I'm not familiar with that term. I don't know what a black sheep is, but if you've ever felt like the outcast that I sometimes feel like because I'm not human—especially the day I was in lockup—then I'm sorry."

Quinn just swallowed and shifted the glass to her right hand to rub her left hand along the back of her neck. "I suppose this is when I apologize for the times I've made you feel like an outcast?" She tried for sarcasm but there was a twinge of guilt that weighed down her voice.

"That would be nice," Rachel admitted softly as she took a step closer.

"I am," Quinn mumbled. "It's my _job_ to do this—so apologizing feels weird."

Rachel nodded in understanding. "You were programmed," she said easily enough. "To kill me. But you didn't."

Quinn glanced at her unwaveringly. "I won't. But that doesn't mean they won't."

Rachel flipped the picture over to trace the cursive on the back of it that informed her of the when and where this moment occurred. "I have pictures."

Her words were sobering to dampen the alcohol flowing through the room, and Quinn pulled the cup away to stare openly at Rachel. She seemed to ignore the tail end of Quinn's statement, and Quinn didn't know what to make of it, could only silently observe Rachel like she always did.

"But they're…not mine," Rachel continued. Her whole face drew up into an expression that just looked like it hurt more than anything. "But if they're not mine, then who do they belong to?" She inhaled a shuddery breath. "Whose memories are these, the ones that I have?"

Heavy silence hung between them, and Quinn busied herself with placing her unfinished glass on the table. She smoothed a hand down the maroon skirt she had taken the liberty to work in today, and licked anxiously at her lower lip. "I don't know," she replied quietly, honestly.

Rachel's gaze hardened as it scanned across Quinn's tiled floors. Her posture grew rigid, curves hardening into straight lines. Quinn could feel the tension radiate off of her, but instead of fearing it, she found herself sympathizing with the obvious frustration Rachel couldn't contain. There was so much for her to be angry about and it probably festered day and night. "I just want to get them out of my head," she gritted out.

Rachel tended to swing in moods from one extreme to another and Quinn couldn't help but wonder if this was just her disposition or if Rachel was just a tad faulty. But it was also possible that human 'dispositions' were just a matter of the human itself being faulty. Bipolar disorders, depression, even something as mundane as a feeling of apathy were created by the body rewiring itself, the brain releasing too little or too many neurotransmitters—being faulty. It was a characteristic humans and replicants alike shared.

"Kind of makes you more human," Quinn suggested in a soft voice, and Rachel immediately looked up to her, hope shown openly on her face. She was so trusting and a part of Quinn didn't want to see anyone destroy that part of her. "Humans have tons of memories they'd wish to forget."

"Really?" Rachel inquired.

"I have a _lot_ of memories I'd give money to have expunged from my brain."

Tensed shoulders slackened as Rachel placed the picture on the table to face Quinn more fully. "Like what?"

The very first thought that came to mind was sleeping with Puck, but Quinn decided to spare Rachel a new memory that she'd probably want to also forget and settled on, "The car accident, the memory of my mother telling me that she consented to my new legs."

"You would rather not know you had them?"

Quinn nodded.

"I am…not necessarily happy, but I am thankful to know that I am a replicant," Rachel decided. "Though I could do without the memories."

"Welcome to being human. It isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Rachel folded her arms around herself at the less than stellar welcoming. "You are always very truthful with me." A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "And for that I love you."

Quinn opened her mouth to speak, but closed it, and bit her lip as she looked away. Her chest grew tight under Rachel's declaration, and she took a deep breath as if to loosen it.

"Do parents lie, Quinn?"

"Fuck yes," Quinn blurted out without thought. She cleared her throat with a lopsided smile. "They lie a _lot_. Everyone does."

"You don't lie."

"I lie a lot."

"You haven't lied to me."

"Not yet."

"Don't," Rachel implored. "Okay? Please don't. I already feel like my father is lying to me."

"About what?" Quinn cut in, posture straightening.

Rachel's shoulders lifted into an unsure shrug. "I can't read minds or anything, but I do have a sixth sense."

She seemed serious, so Quinn resisted the urge to scoff off Rachel's talk of sixth sense and instead focused on the worried expression on her face. "Do you think you're in danger?"

"Oh, no, no—my father loves me," Rachel assured with a small, fond smile. "Deeply, I'm sure of that."

"Then what would he have to lie about?"

"Have you ever just _felt_ like someone was keeping something from you?"

"Yeah, but most of the time I was just being paranoid."

"I have an expiration date over my head because your blade runner colleagues are trying to kill me, Quinn, I think I have a right to be paranoid."

Quinn just stared down at Rachel who looked so small with her arms folded across her middle, hands fisting into her dress. Quinn didn't necessarily trust LeRoy, but that was based on the fact that he created replicants, not because he may be lying to one.

"I don't know many people," Rachel muttered. "I grew up in the corporation. I only really know my father, Shelby Corcoran, Mr. Schuester, and you—and Noah, I suppose." Her eyes were pleading as she looked up at Quinn. "I can't afford to have liars in my life. I have no choice but to trust the few people I have, so just—please never lie to me, okay?"

She couldn't help but wonder how she got to this point, where she owed Rachel anything other than a bullet between the eyes. But what was more alarming was the fact that she was willing to oblige to this request.

And Rachel smiled and did what was possibly her greatest ability to date, molding herself into Quinn seamlessly where Quinn was sure no one would ever fit.

Hazel eyes began to sting as she held Rachel close and Quinn couldn't blame it on the alcohol this time.

* * *

Quinn swatted along her nightstand beside the bed for her alarm clock, flipping a switch until it stopped squawking at her. She buried her face in the pillow with a sigh. "Rachel Berry, if you're staring at me right now we're going to have a problem."

She heard Rachel giggle, impishly innocent before a head nestled into her pillow, hitting Quinn's own just a little too harshly until she groaned. "You have a very hard head."

Soft lips brushed against the side of her head. "I'm sorry," Rachel whispered.

"This makes me regret letting you spend the night," Quinn grumbled.

Rachel grinned and nuzzled closer until her nose brushed against Quinn's earlobe. "Thank you," she sighed into Quinn's neck. "I did not want to wake up in my apartment alone." LeRoy had called Rachel last night to inform her that he would be staying with Hiram, and with big, doe eyes Rachel had asked Quinn if she could spend the night. How they ended up in the same bed, Quinn could only guess; she had relegated Rachel to the couch.

"Do you always keep such odd hours?" Quinn wondered, knowing Rachel had gotten up at some point in the middle of the night and slid under the covers.

"I sleep when I'm tired and I awake when I'm reenergized, like a human." Rachel's fingers were chilled as they skated along Quinn's bare waist where her shirt had ridden up and Quinn squirmed and buried her face further into her pillow as Rachel wrapped an arm around her and tugged her closer to her nearly nude form. "Only, I do not require a full eight hours. But I can sleep that long if need be."

Quinn kept her face in the pillow as goose bumps pricked her skin, voice muffled as she prompted, "If need be?"

Rachel still heard her perfectly clear, and nuzzled into Quinn's ear softly. "It's not fun to be awake alone," she murmured.

Quinn shivered at the low intimacy of her voice. It had been years since she had heard anything even resembling that and she felt her body stir accordingly. She exhaled slowly and shifted her legs to expel energy that was beginning to amass inside of her, ignoring when her legs brushing against Rachel's. "How long did you sleep that day you stayed over?"

Rachel picked at the dyed cotton of Quinn's night shirt. "Two hours—I was, emotionally, very drained. When I awoke you were asleep, so I went back to sleep. You were asleep for a very long time. I was kind of worried."

Quinn peeled her eyes open and turned her head to take in the aptly described annoying ball of sunshine that was Rachel Berry. She was too close, and Quinn shifted back a little. "I was tired," she rasped.

Rachel's lower lip jutted out as she glanced down at Quinn's neck. It was such a vulnerable part of her body—easy to access, easy to snap. "You could have died that day." Her voice was little more than a mournful sigh as her fingers traced down Quinn's throat.

Quinn licked her lips in reflex at the feel of a familiar feeling tightening low in her gut that was scarier than actually fearing Rachel would strangle her right now would have been. "But I didn't," she choked out.

Rachel smiled then, slow and happy. "Because I saved you," she sing-songed.

Quinn scoffed. "Yeah, yeah."

"And while we're on the subject, you needn't feel like I need protection. Don't listen to my father," Rachel insisted with sharpening eyes.

"You were eavesdropping yesterday," Quinn realized, and Rachel shrugged sheepishly.

"I have good hearing; it cannot be helped. But my father—he sees me as a child sometimes. I don't understand why."

"You _are_ his child, in his eyes anyway."

"Yes, but he created me to be stronger and faster than any human. And I _am_." Her fingers rose to push a long lock of blonde hair from Quinn's face. "Don't get yourself killed thinking you need to protect me, when in reality I can protect you."

"I have a gun."

Rachel just hummed and watched the contrast of her thumb against Quinn's cheek. She looked down to her lips and her own quirked in thought. "I think we should kiss."

Quinn grabbed Rachel's hand and pulled back. "I think I should get to work." She turned over to hop out of bed and Rachel flopped onto her back with a frustrated growl.

"Oh, don't even," Quinn responded, spinning back around to find the covers bunched under Rachel's nearly bare torso. The only thing she saw fit to wear into Quinn's bed was a bra and panties. "I already told you I wasn't going there with you, Rachel." Feeling naked in only a shirt and panties, Quinn quickly walked over to her drawer and searched for a pair of shorts to throw on as she began her morning routine.

"Why?" Rachel demanded from the bed. She licked her lips and sat up to throw the covers back and follow Quinn into the hallway. She rested against the wall in the hallway to watch Quinn stand in front of the sink in the bathroom a few feet away. "Is it because you don't believe my feelings for you?"

Quinn sighed in impatience at Rachel's questioning and the sluggish pace it took the freezing water running out of the faucet to warm up. She dropped her wash rag into the sink with a sigh. She was so going to be late to work this morning. "I believe you. Okay? Now leave me alone and let me get ready for work."

Rachel recoiled slightly at the change in Quinn's voice, abrupt and cold. She stepped forward, bared feet on hardwood floors and balanced against the doorframe of the bathroom. "Then why?" she asked softly. "Why won't you kiss me? Do you not like me?"

Quinn cut her a sharp look, jaw tightening as she turned back to the mirror and ran the warm wash cloth across her face.

"You said you'd never lie to me," Rachel continued.

"I'm trying not to."

"Then just tell me," she pleaded.

"You wanna know why?" Quinn prompted bitingly as she threw the wash cloth into the sink. She turned around and stepped forward to tower over Rachel with tightening shoulders. "Because you're going to _die_ in two years."

"W-what?" Rachel immediately sputtered with a confused furrow of her brow and a quirk of her lips into an unamused smile. "What are you talking about?"

"Replicants only function four years, and then they terminate. It's a practical function that Schuester's Corporation has used for years, and every replicant has a kill switch." Quinn's voice was cold and unyielding suddenly in her own frustration and Rachel wilted in despair under her words. "And you can't—it's not fair to me for you to expect me to fall in love with you when you're just going to die. It's selfish."

Rachel stood there motionless as her gaze withered and fell away to the tiled bathroom floors. Quinn stared at her for a long moment until she felt her eyes sting, then shouldered past Rachel and back into her room to change.

She rubbed at her stiff knee as she stood in front of her chest of drawers, shucking her shorts down her legs before rummaging for a pair of jeans. Today was probably going to be a messy one.

Catching the time on the clock resting on her nightstand, Quinn stiffly walked out of her room, deciding to forgo coffee to at least attempt to make it to work semi-on-time. "Do you want me to give you a ride home?" Her eyebrow flicked up when no reply came and she walked into the living room to find it empty. No clothes, no Rachel. She had gotten dressed and left.

"Fuck," Quinn muttered darkly to herself, shucking the granola bar in her hand into the closed door that Rachel had long ago walked out of. "Fuck, fuck, _fuck_."

* * *

"Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine?"

"Not today, Puck."

Puck shook his head and plopped down on the chair in front of Quinn's desk. "Someone hasn't had her coffee."

Quinn shot him a look then went back to checking her email. "Among other things." There was a forward message from her mother that promised to brighten her day with its title and Quinn absentmindedly clicked on it as she awaited Puck's inevitable reply.

"Honestly, I don't get why you don't just bone this chick already. Anyone who gets under your skin like that should at least fuck you for your troubles."

'Hang in there' was the message, coupled with a cat…hanging in there. Quinn exited out of her browser with a sigh. "I should probably call my parents," she muttered.

"Tell your mom I said hi. She was a total milf when we were growing up," Puck told her with a fond smile and a far away look in his eyes.

She placed her elbows heavily on table to glare at him. "Why are you here?"

At that, Puck sighed heavily. "Our hunch was right."

"About what?" Quinn asked carefully.

"The hotel manager is dead. I stopped by there yesterday to check in on him after you mentioned at the hospital yesterday that we hadn't heard from him in a while." He ran his hands through his mohawk and puffed out a breath. "The employees had been keeping it low-key for days because they were afraid calling attention to it would draw the replicants back."

"They're gone?"

Puck nodded gravely.

"Well, where the hell are they?"

She knew the answer before Puck even said, "I don't know," and slumped back against her chair in befuddlement.

"They're on the move," Puck muttered. "Who knows what the hell they're planning. Who even knew they could _plan_?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

* * *

"And she really didn't know?" Puck asked incredulously. "I mean, I know the girl's naïve, but come on."

Quinn shook her head, glancing out the window. "No one told her, and she's spent two years thinking she was human, why would she know of a kill switch? LeRoy gave her false memories of some other child, or he made them up—either way it was essentially brainwashing her into seeing herself as human. All she knows is that she's a replicant and blade runners are trying to kill her."

"Retire her," Puck corrected softly.

"Yeah," Quinn mumbled.

Puck slid to a smooth stop along the curb and shifted the gear into park. He casted a sideways glance at Quinn and hesitated for a moment before prompting, "Could you?"

Quinn allowed the purr of the engine to distract her until Puck shut the car off. "No," she finally choked out. Her eyes narrowed, then shifted to Puck. "Would you?"

He scratched at his mohawk, looking apprehensive, and Quinn couldn't blame him. This was the job, after all. "For you, I wouldn't," he responded carefully. "But someone will."

Quinn nodded. "That's what I told her."

"And what'd she say?"

"She didn't even respond." She sucked her teeth in annoyance. "What kind of person doesn't care that they're going to die?"

"She's not a person."

"You know what I mean, Puck!" Quinn shot back sternly, though the twinge of desperation in her voice made her statement less intimidating.

"Hey, hey, don't yell at me," he responded in defense.

Quinn sighed. "I'm sorry." Her gaze dropped from his as she admitted, "I'm just a little keyed up. I don't ever know what she's thinking. She's honest, sometimes too honest. But sometimes she just doesn't respond normally or at all and I _don't_ _know_ what's going through her mind. I don't even know where she is right now." Quinn sunk back further into her seat. "She left my apartment this morning upset because I told her, and I don't know where she went."

"So call her."

Quinn rubbed at the back of her neck self-consciously. "I don't have her number."

"Call Berry."

"I may have to," Quinn mumbled. She sat there for a moment, then unbuckled her seatbelt as restlessness gripped her. "Let's do something."

"Like our jobs?" Puck quipped as he slid out of the car.

The bell signaling their entrance into the hotel rang above their heads as they walked through the double doors. The same clerk that was there last week when they visited glanced up and away when he recognized the sneer on Quinn's face. She didn't like being played, especially when she was trying to do her job. She marched up to the desk and slammed her hand down on it. The boy nearly jumped out of his pressed, collared shirt, and Puck slid from behind Quinn to stand to his full height beside her.

Quinn's voice was abrupt when she simply said, "I'm looking for your manager."

The bellboy nervously looked between the two of them, then bit his lip. "I—he-he's not here right now."

"Well, when will he be back in?"

Suddenly the bellboy began to look queasy as he clutched at his stomach and took a step forward. "He's…dead," he whispered.

She blinked as if she were as clueless as he was, then turned to Puck. "You don't say."

"This is _so_ surprising," Puck joined in.

Quinn angled a cold look at the boy behind the desk. "You didn't think of calling us to inform us of his death since we had been waiting three days for a phone call from him?"

"I—well—"

"Are you a moron?"

"No, it's just—we didn't want the replicants to come back and kill us," he sighed, anxiety creasing his entire face. "He said he'd come back."

"Who?" Quinn demanded, grabbing for the pen and pad in her coat.

"Sebastian's his name. _Please_ don't tell him I told you."

Quinn scoffed. "We're going to retire them; they're not coming back."

The bellboy didn't appear the least bit relieved, to which Quinn didn't really care about. "What's your name?"

"J-Josh," he whispered hesitantly. "You're not going to tell them that, are you?"

"Josh, when did your manager die?"

"Two days ago."

"Is that when the replicants left?"

Josh pursed his lips and nodded gravely, and Quinn's eyes narrowed. "Tell me what happened."

"They came back in after being gone for days, and my manager immediately left to call you," Josh explained. "Sebastian must have gotten suspicious because my boss was acting a little weird. I told Sebastian not to follow him, but he did anyway," Josh rushed out. He shifted uncomfortably. "Next thing I heard was my boss yelling. Then it got quiet, and Sebastian walked out all calm like nothing had happened. And he just—he _smiled_ at me, like he hadn't just killed someone. Then he said he'd kill me, too, if I picked up the phone and called the police. Then he and the other replicant left."

"Mike," Quinn mumbled, and Puck nodded. Her gut twisted with dread at the description of Sebastian smiling after murdering the hotel manager. Replicants didn't respond properly in social situations and Sebastian's inappropriate response reminded her of Rachel's lack of response when Quinn reminded her that although _she_ wasn't going to be the one to retire her, someone else would.

She cleared her throat, and sighed as she deposited her pen and pad back into her coat. "Where's the body?"

"His family has it—_him_," Josh stammered. "The funeral is soon. They were devastated."

Quinn nodded, uncomfortable, and took a step back. "Is there anything else you to tell us before we leave?"

"He looked awful," Josh admitted with a sympathetic shake of his head.

"Was he strangled?" It was typical replicant M.O. to assess the most vulnerable part of a human and strike there.

Josh's head bobbed up and down. "And his eyes—they were all mushy," he described. "Like Sebastian had just…mashed his thumbs in, and—"

"That's enough," Quinn cut in, stomach roiling with unease. "Thanks. If we need more, we'll be in touch."

It wasn't until either of them were out of the hotel when someone finally spoke.

"Mashing the guy's eyes in? Seemed personal," Puck muttered as he fished his keys from the inside of his jacket.

Quinn closed her coat around her and wrapped her arms around her middle to fight off the chilled wind as they walked to the car. "Sounds like he was angry. Impatient."

"Impatient?" His tone was colored in amusement as he looked over at her. "Like he has an important dentist appointment and can't be late?"

It was meant to be a joke, but Quinn was mulling over his words anyway. "Can't be late…" she mumbled to herself.

"Where to now? Work?"

She snapped out of her reverie at the mention of her rancid job and the people there who no longer trusted her, alienated her. "No."

Puck stopped, hand on the car handle and spied Quinn walking across to the other side. "Then where the hell we going?"

Quinn looked up to the overcast sky, the sun barely visible on a dreary Tuesday morning, and wondered when the hell this was all going to be over. "Schuester's," she murmured after a moment. "Let's go to the corp."

* * *

"How much do you think they make a year?" Puck asked conversationally inside the elevator. It was made of titanium and polished to shine, and Puck touched every surface of it. He squatted to the ocean green and cream tiled floors and swiped a finger across it to see how spotless it was.

"Too much," Quinn muttered. Despite her tentative friendship with Rachel, her dislike for the company still remained.

"I totally should have been working here. Could have saved up to move to the Bahamas or something."

Quinn watched the numbers count upward as they ascended floors. "What are you going to do after this?" she wondered after a moment. Half the money was already transferred into their accounts, thousands of dollars that Puck really could have used to up and move to the Bahamas if he wanted to.

Puck shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. "Don't know. Blow it all on video games?"

"At least put some in savings," she scolded with a roll of her eyes.

He shrugged. "What are you gonna do?"

The elevator dinged open, and Quinn let the question die as they walked onto the main floor. The same lady, Shelby Corcoran, was there behind the desk, and Quinn glanced around her, solidifying what Rachel had told her: that this was the only place she had frequented aside from her home in two years. Quinn thought it maddening to only live between two places, but figured if this was all Rachel had known, she wouldn't have gotten curious to learn more. Until very recently.

"I'm here to see Dr. Berry, please."

Shelby's posture was dismissive as she angled away from Quinn toward her computer. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No. I don't."

"Then please sit over there," Shelby demanded, leveling Quinn with a look before glancing away.

Puck whistled out a breath, feeling the tension in the air as he took a step back and turned away from Quinn's tightening posture. Quinn's voice was smooth as silk and cold as ice as she smiled at Shelby, sharp and feral. "Listen, we've played this game before. And the last time you tried to stonewall me, I threatened to call for backup. That can still be arranged."

"Detective Fabray, I believe you've done enough, wouldn't you agree?" Shelby replied acidly. "You've waltzed into this place and ruined a relationship between a man and his daughter—"

"What does that have to do with you?" Quinn asked abruptly, genuine curious as she leaned forward across the desk. The memory of Rachel saying she was close to Shelby began to tickle her brain.

Shelby's entire expression blanked and shut down as she turned away from Quinn. "Please have a seat."

Quinn braced her hands on the edge of the desk, tendons flexing in her mounting frustration. "We have yet another death on our hands due to these fucking skin-jobs you guys kept spitting out, and now we have no idea where the hell they are." She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "I'm going up that elevator whether I have your permission or not. You just better hope I don't see anything I'm not supposed to while I'm up there." She spun around quickly, coat whirling in momentum behind her and Puck casted a glance back to Shelby looking disgruntled as she grabbed for the phone and sped up.

"You might want to hop in that elevator quick."

Quinn mashed the button and glanced back to Shelby as well. "Security?"

"Let's just hope they're human."

Her blood ran cold at the possibility of replicant security guards and she mashed the button again. Double doors parted, and Quinn casted one more look over her shoulder before stepping back and walking away from it. "We'll take the stares."

"What the hell?" Puck protested behind her as he jogged to catch up.

"How much do you wanna bet she has a button behind that desk that can stop the elevator?"

He considered it for a moment, then pursed his lips in appreciation. "Smart thinking."

"I wasn't a straight A student for nothing."

They took the stairs two at a time to arrive to the fifth floor. Puck poured off the last step, staggering for breath as Quinn breezed past him. "How are you not near death?" he wheezed.

Quinn shrugged. "Durable legs, remember?"

"Yeah, _legs_ not _lungs_."

"You should exercise, dough boy," she teased.

He immediately stood to his full height and glowered down at her. "Not funny. At _all_."

"Detectives Fabray and Puckerman, is there anything I can help you with?"

They both swiveled around to find Rachel standing several feet away from them in the middle of the hallway and blocking LeRoy's office door.

Puck's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "I think this is the security that receptionist called on us," he muttered from the corner of his mouth.

Quinn's lips quirked in annoyance, not really knowing what to make of this situation. "We're here to speak with Dr. Berry for routine questioning."

Rachel clasped her hands behind her back. "May I inquire what for?" Her voice was detached and emotionless, something Quinn had never heard from her before. She looked so much like a...robot.

"Hell hath no fury," Puck whispered. Quinn elbowed him in the gut.

She took a step closer toward Rachel. "A replicant recently murdered a hotel manager, brutally actually, and we'd like to question LeRoy to see if he possibly knows where they are now. We have reason to believe that they're planning something. What, I don't know." She watched Rachel's posture falter in reaction to learning of the murder and continued to walk closer.

"I'm certain my father isn't aware of their whereabouts," Rachel responded after regrouping.

Quinn's eyes narrowed. "Are you lying to me?"

"I do not lie."

"But your father does," Quinn countered. She watched Rachel's expression crumble as she came to a stop in front of her and suddenly regretted her words. Rachel glanced away and folded her arms across her middle to look small and almost pathetic. Quinn sighed and softened her tone as she asked, "Have you asked him about it?" referencing Rachel's kill switch.

Rachel shook her head, not meeting Quinn's gaze. "I do not have the courage to," she admitted. She licked her lips and bit her bottom one before looking back up at Quinn. "I do not wish to talk to you right now, so please leave."

Quinn glanced over Rachel's shoulder to LeRoy's office door all the way down the hallway. This had been the third reported case of replicants attacking humans on Earth, and the first case where she literally felt that there was blood on her hands. It didn't sit well with her, and if she didn't do her job to the best of her ability, which was to retire every single replicant, then she would always feel guilty about it.

Rachel's eyes were full of defiance, but Quinn had always been good at reading people, and could pick up on the flicker of hopefulness hidden. She sighed, and her posture slouched as she murmured, "So, you're not talking to me, then?"

Rachel reacted to the intimate tone her voice had taken on instantly, looking suspicious yet intrigued. Her arms folded tighter around herself as if to protect herself against Quinn. "No."

Quinn nodded and looked down for a moment. She scuffed her boot across the floor then glanced up at Rachel from beneath her eyelashes as she scratched at the back of her neck. "I've had people walk out on me before, but not when I was being so _charming_."

"That was not charming," Rachel argued. Her lips twitched as her posture relaxed, and Quinn kind of smiled, genuinely, before taking a step closer.

"I admit that was…insensitive," Quinn replied honestly. "I was frustrated. Okay? You were just being pushy again and I kind of just didn't want to talk about it."

"I asked for honesty and you gave it to me. But that didn't mean that you had to treat me the way you did," Rachel mumbled, dragging a hand roughly down her face before she met Quinn's eyes again with sorrow. "But I am still angry with you, because you will not give us a chance."

Glancing over her shoulder, Quinn eyed Puck who was several feet away, on his phone and hopefully not paying attention. She turned back to Rachel and took a step closer to keep their conversation private. "You're going to _die_," she asserted quietly, emphatically.

"Everyone dies," Rachel defended. "That stops no one from loving. No one, but you."

"I can't talk about this right now."

"You can't _ever_ talk about it."

"I'll tell you what," Quinn prompted, looking for an opening, a compromise, anything that would get her into LeRoy's office for questioning. "Tonight. Tonight we'll talk, all you want, if you let me in to speak with your father."

Rachel was suspicious again as she regarded Quinn evenly. "I sincerely hope you aren't lying."

"I'm not."

"He knows nothing."

"I'll be the judge."

Rachel dropped her hands to her side as if she was ready to put up a fight. Then she stepped aside with a long, drawn out sigh, and gestured for Quinn to walk through.

Quinn nodded in her direction with a, "thank you," before motioning for Puck to follow. Her knuckles rapped on LeRoy's open office door as she took a step in. He was on the phone and glanced up at Quinn briefly before returning to his conversation. "Hiram? I—honey? I have to go now, okay? We'll talk later. Yeah, yeah. Love you, too. Bye now."

Her eyebrow quirked at the one-sided exchange she could hear as she walked further into the office. "I see the two of you are on the mend."

"Not that it's any of your business, detective, but yes; Hiram and I are…trying."

"And where does that leave Rachel?" Quinn found herself asking.

At the mention of his daughter, LeRoy faltered, clearing his throat and smoothing down the pocket of his lab coat. "Nothing is set in stone right now—"

"That roundabout way of speaking is doing nothing to answer my question," she cut in, glaring down at LeRoy from where she was standing in front of his desk.

"If she'd like to move in with Hiram and me, she's certainly welcome."

"Move in?" Her eyebrows creased in confusion. "Have you even spoken to her about any of this?"

"She's grown distant," LeRoy defended.

"Yeah, because you've thrusted this man that she doesn't even know into her life. She has a right to be distant."

LeRoy shot up from his seat at the accusation, muscles tight as he leaned across the desk. "I believe I know how to take care of my own family," he barked.

Puck laid a heavy hand on Quinn's shoulder as she leaned forward. He curled his fingers into her coat to get her attention and pulled her back. "This is a _business_ meeting, Q, not a _personal_ one." He pulled her back fully and stepped between her and LeRoy. "Sorry for the interruption, sir, but we're actually here to ask some routine questions."

LeRoy's posture slackened and with a flick of his wrist he motioned for Puck to continue as he sank back down into his seat.

Quinn casted a quick glance outside of the office into the hallway to find it empty. She sighed and turned away, remembering she had a job to do.

"Have the replicants tried to contact you at all, sir?" Puck asked.

LeRoy shook his head. "I haven't had contact with Sebastian Smythe and Mike Chang since I created them."

"Would you perhaps know where they would be going? A hideout, anything?"

Again LeRoy shook his head with wide, dark eyes that reminded Quinn of Rachel. He braced an arm on the desk and rubbed at his five o'clock shadow with his right hand. "What they are doing now, detective, is something that is new. Do you understand? They were not taught to run and hide; it is something that they've likely picked up from less than stellar off-Earth humans. Here at Schuester Corp we create replicants that _help_ with the building plans going on off-Earth. We do not create them to lie, cheat, steal, murder. Those things they learn from humans, sadly."

"What about the kill switch?" Quinn prompted from across the room by the door.

LeRoy looked over at her. "What about it?"

"Well, they're close to the date, aren't they?"

"I wouldn't know. I've made hundreds, thousands of replicants over the years. To know that type of specific information for just one replicant, I would have to have their files on hand to know when they came off the lot—"

"Blaine Anderson said he was three years and ten months."

LeRoy's mouth clamped shut. Then he muttered, "They're close, then. Very close."

Quinn pushed off the door. "That's all the questions we have for now."

Puck shot her an odd look, but conceded. "Thank you for your time, Dr. Berry."

"I look forward to the day where this is all over, and I can live without blade runners up my ass."

Quinn muttered, "Something tells me you _like_ having things up your—"

"Okay," Puck drawled. "Have a good day." He grabbed Quinn by the arm and pulled her out of the door. Once they were alone, he snickered. "That was totally something I would say." He went to high five her, but Quinn blew it off.

"I never thought I'd see the day where you'd handle a situation more professionally than I would."

"When Sue said you had impeccable charm? She really meant me."

"Get bent."

* * *

Quinn flicked on a light in her empty apartment. She nudged the door closed behind her and twisted the lock as she sat her keys on the table.

It was quiet, the only sound in the entire apartment being the sole of Quinn's shoes scuffing listlessly across polished wooden floors. She had forgotten just how quiet her apartment could be without Rachel's small stature and big presence.

Scratching absentmindedly at her chin, Quinn walked through her living room. She found herself in the kitchen, and she wondered why she never bought a new table as her fingers ghosted over the indentation permanently embedded, kind of like Rachel herself—an unapologetic, deep impression in Quinn's life that caused a lump of emotion to clog her throat to just think about, because Rachel wasn't permanent like the gash in Quinn's table was; but what was permanence anyway?

The doomsday argument already ventured that there was a ninety-five percent chance of extinction in just over nine thousand more years. The average life expectancy of a woman was around eighty years. Humans weren't permanent beings. _Quinn_ wasn't a permanent being. Everyone dies. Rachel had a point, but the chances of Quinn surviving the next two years outweighed Rachel's zero percent by a landslide.

And she wanted nowhere near Rachel when she finally died.

But the deafening silence in her apartment rang loudly through her head, and Quinn wanted no part of this, either. She couldn't have her cake and eat it, too. She had never been that lucky in life.

It was honestly astonishing how many memories had built up in the kitchen over the past several weeks to the point where Quinn felt like she was being smothered. Her feet carried her into the hallway and she casted a glance down the narrow space to her bedroom, a dark cave that threatened to swallow her with even more memories of Rachel in her bed. Instead, she turned away, back into the living room and ignored the couch Rachel frequented to slump back against her own usual.

Her parents had always been wonderful at solving dilemmas for her when she was younger. If Quinn could take a guess, it was probably around middle school, puberty, when her parents had dropped the ball, not because they didn't care. But because they cared about the wrong things, like ensuring their daughter was physically beautiful and consenting to plastic surgery instead of reassuring her that she was beautiful the way she was, inside and out. Her mom had even pulled another variation of the same theme when she consented to Quinn's replicant model legs, just so she could win prom queen, while she was in a coma after the car accident.

A rift had grown between Quinn and them at the exact moment of the first mishap, and hadn't been mended since. But there were times like now where she hadn't spoken to her parents in a while, was weary with all life had thrown at her, and really just needed to hear the gentle timbre of her mother's voice, or the protective sternness of her father's.

"Hi, Quinn."

Quinn exhaled shakily into the phone. She crossed her legs on the couch and rested her elbow on her knee, cradling her head in her hand. "Hey, mom."

The sound of Judy's relieved sigh weighed down on Quinn's chest as her grip around her cell phone tightened. "It's good to hear from you, Quinn, especially since I heard from the news today that a local hotel manager was murdered by one of those replacements."

"Replicants, mom," Quinn corrected with a hollow chuckle. "They're called replicants."

"Well, whatever they are, they're dangerous," Judy decided with a huff. "I need to know that my daughter is safe."

"I'm safe. I'm home."

"I worry about you day and night, yet you won't ease my worries by picking up the phone and calling every once in a while," Judy continued. "Children these days. Once they move out they start to think they're grown."

"I _am_ grown," Quinn argued.

"Barely."

She picked at a loose thread in the seam of her jeans and contemplated a shower. "How's dad?"

Judy scoffed at the very mention of him. "Fine. He's somewhere around here watching _House_, I'm sure."

"And how are you guys holding up?"

"Squabbling like the Robinson's used to, but other than that, all right."

"Okay, that's good," Quinn mumbled. It was the best anyone could ask for, honestly.

"Honey, you sound so sad."

Her mother had an uncanny ability to read others, and Quinn sunk back into the cushions of the couch with a weary sigh. "I'm not sad," she fretted. A long stretch of silence passed in which neither of them spoke. Judy was waiting her out, and Quinn sucked her teeth in annoyance. "I'm not," she reiterated. "I just…realize I could be happier than what I am now, and I'm not taking the opportunity. And for that…I'm a little sad, yeah," she finished with a murmur.

Judy hummed in understanding from halfway across town. "You teenagers can be so moody."

"I'm twenty-one," Quinn replied dryly, and Judy chortled.

"So, you are." She cleared her throat to abruptly ask, "Do you want to end up like me and your father?"

Quinn frowned. "You guys are—"

"Miserable, grouchy, old people?"

"I wouldn't say that…"

"Well, I would, and I do. Now, Quinn, sometimes you've got to grab life by the horns. Take those acting classes if you want to."

Her eyebrow flicked up at the last of Judy's statement before she cut her eyes to the right. "Yeah," she drawled. "Sure. Thanks, mom."

"Mhm. Now, I've got to go. _American_ _Idol_ is on and I've got my money on the fella from Virginia."

"Yes, go," Quinn replied with a wave of her hand into the empty apartment. "Wouldn't want to tie up your line and keep you from voting. Though you're only guaranteeing yourself arthritis within the next ten years."

Judy ignored Quinn's sardonic reply. "Call more often," she demanded, tone scolding. "I hear from my oldest more than I hear from my baby."

"I'll call more," Quinn promised. The call ended and her gaze skirted to the top right of her phone screen to find that it was eight pm. Rachel was supposed to visit, and though Rachel kept odd hours and came and went as she pleased, she was typically at Quinn's house by now.

Quinn cursed herself for not having Rachel's number, and could do nothing but scroll through her contacts to find someone to talk to in order to keep from obsessing over the time dwindling away.

* * *

She wasn't in the mood today.

She had woken up on her couch—having accidentally slept there the night before—stiff, with one hard spring digging into her back. There was no more creamer for her coffee, and the line at _Starbucks_ was entirely too long for Quinn to grab a coffee and make it to work on time.

The double doors swung open widely as Quinn pressed through, shoulders rolled back as she ignored the sneers of betrayal marring everyone's faces as if she had allowed a replicant to murder a human right in front of her. She was working the case to the best of her ability, more so than the others who just sat behind their desks and took phone calls from empty leads who just wanted the bounty money for tipping off a blade runner to possible whereabouts of replicants.

Since word had gotten out about her knowledge of an extra replicant at Schuester's Corp, Quinn had been demoted to the dog house, leaving Santana as Sue's favorite who had to do nothing while Quinn and Puck risked their lives on the streets every day. Quinn had lost count of how many times she had been strangled.

It would be like this until the last replicant was retired. Then she could leave the blade runner academy behind for good. But until then she had to endure the odd looks and whispers behind her back. It was nothing new to her, however. In high school people talked about her, band geeks when she was popular, and the popular kids when she had cracked under the pressure and finally decided to ditch them to become an outlier.

Dirty looks and snickers at her social leprosy were nothing new to her, but today found her gritting her teeth with an extra side of annoyance to go as she cut a glare to the most obvious person with a staring problem.

The woman was a plump blonde named Patty, and the second Quinn chose to boldly make intense eye contact for a long, unflinching moment, Patty looked away.

Quinn continued through the main room and into her office, slamming the door shut. The tension at work seemed to be ratcheted up today, and she couldn't tell if _she_ was the one in a heightened state because of her irritation, or if something was wrong.

"Q."

At the sound of her nickname, a single letter uttered with such a stern quality, Quinn glanced down at the work-issued phone on her desk that was blinking with Sue's extension. Sue rarely made calls, preferring to harass her employees in person. "Yeah?"

"Meeting in my office. Now."

The ominous message ended there, and Quinn stood sluggishly. "I can't take this shit today," she muttered to herself. "Really can't."

Santana was predictably already there, looking high and mighty with one leg crossed over the other, judgmental gaze firmly landing on Quinn as she crossed the threshold into the room.

Puck was two seats down from Santana, and Quinn's familiar chair was snug in the middle, but she stayed hovering by the doorway, only stepping further inside to close the door when Sue signaled her to.

Sue's gaze was cold, her posture combative as she leaned forward in her seat as if she was going to lunge across her desk at Quinn. "William Schuester is dead."

Quinn blinked, and took a step back, as Santana finally whipped her head around from glaring at Quinn long enough to express her shock. "_Dead_? As in pushing up daises, dead? So, what, was he like, killed by a replicant, or something?"

Sue cut her eyes to Quinn then back to Santana. "Given how heavily secured the corporation is, where Schuester was found murdered, we have reason to believe that he was murdered by someone or some_thing_ that was already inside the facility."

Quinn's blood ran cold at Sue's line of deduction. Her voice was clipped, daring as she pointedly asked, "What are you trying to say?"

Santana shot from her seat at the challenge. "I'll say it for her. Chances are your BFF replicant _murdered_ Schuester."

She bristled at the accusation as if she herself had just been accused. "She did not murder him, Santana."

"And how would you know?" Santana shot back with a scornful smirk, goading Quinn into an argument. "You been shackin' it up at your place with her?"

Quinn side-stepped the obvious trap and dared to walk closer. "She's never murdered anyone."

"She just shot a replicant in the head three times last week!"

"That's not _murder_!" Quinn asserted. "And she was protecting me!"

Santana looked around the room as if to engage the other occupants as she prompted, "Look, let's just call it what it is. Quinn's compromising this case because she opened her home and probably her legs for that lifeless, dwarfed, skin-jo—"

Tears leapt to Santana's eyes suddenly as her head jerked with the momentum from Quinn slapping her face. Puck sprang up from his seat and practically dive tackled Santana toward the other side of the room when she lunged from Quinn.

"Whoa, woah! Everyone calm down!" His arms wrapped securely around Santana's waist and he clutched her to his chest. "Normally I'd totally be down for chick's wrestling but only in bikinis and only if there's mud involved."

Santana growled, "Get off me!" and wrestled out of Puck's hold, roughly tugging down the hem of her shirt and clenching her fists at her side to keep from rubbing away what little dignity she had left and the sting on cheek.

Quinn shook aching tingles out of her hand, wincing at how much it hurt and how quickly she had lost control. Her attention shifted to Sue who stood from her chair, silent through the whole exchange. She walked around her desk and continued until she was directly in front of Quinn.

"I want your badge, and your gun," Sue told her simply. "You're done here."

Her breath hitched inaudibly in surprise. Sue had threatened their badges, mostly Puck's, a few times over the years, but she had never actually followed through on her threats.

Sue's lips curled cruelly, the creases in her face becoming more pronounced as she glared down at Quinn. "And since you can't retire the replicant at Schuester's Corp, I'll do it for you."

"Or I'll do it," Santana called from across the room. She sounded weird and it was probably because the whole left side of her face was swollen. "With pleasure."

Quinn's gaze was firmly locked on Santana, anger rolling white hot through her and seeming to encase her bones until her hand visibly shook as she pulled her gun from inside of her coat. She hesitated for a moment, the muzzle pointed across the room, and Santana's eyes widened, though the safety was on. Quinn took a deep breath, and broke eye contact to thrust the gun into Sue's hand, followed by her badge.

Sue held the weight of Quinn's gun in her hand, and tossed her badge into the trashcan. "You've been discharged, Quinn."

* * *

Quinn slammed her car door shut, and stalked up the stairs to her apartment building.

"Good evening, Quinn!"

Her shoulders tensed and she swiveled around to go from frowning to smiling, falsely, to greet, "Good evening, Mrs. Scott!" through clenched teeth.

The woman looked at her oddly for a moment, probably a little unnerved by scary smile on Quinn's face, before she waved once more and stepped into her car.

Quinn turned back around and stormed into her apartment building.

"Ms. Fabray, I need your rent."

"Soon, Mr. Graves, soon," she growled, tugging herself onto the first step by the railing. The elevator had been out for the past few days, but she found that stomping up the stairs to her apartment expelled some frustration.

"No stomping, young lady!" Mr. Graves called after her, and Quinn stomped even harder up each and every step.

She jingled her keys out of her purse and huffed in irritation as she tried to search for the key to her door.

She grabbed her key by two fingers, jiggled it free from the clutter of the remaining keys, and looked up to find Rachel rising to stand on her doorstep.

Quinn dropped her keys.

Rachel pushed into motion with a quiet murmur of, "Let me help you," and before Quinn could even bend down to grab them herself, Rachel was already clasping them in her hand and rising again to drop them in Quinn's hand. She stared up at Quinn for a long moment with glistening eyes and wet eyelashes. "Hi."

Quinn swallowed thickly, shaking her head minutely back and forth because she was so overwhelmed and didn't know what to say or do. She looked up and over Rachel's shoulder to find two suitcases beside her door. Her eyebrows dipped in confusion. "You have…luggage."

Rachel wiped her eyes and looked away with a shy nod. "Can I live here with you? Please?" she mumbled.

Everything felt like too much.

Everything felt like too much, yet not enough as she stared down at Rachel with so many burning questions. Namely, why was she crying? Why did she suddenly want to move in? Did it have to do with LeRoy? Where the hell was her own life going from here, and where did Rachel fit in, if at all?

"We should probably go inside, talk about this," Quinn told her, voice strained and scratchy even to her own ears. And to Rachel's, if the concerned frown on her face was any indication.

Quinn grabbed a suitcase and Rachel grabbed the other as they walked into the apartment. Not even wanting to deal at the moment, Quinn dropped the suitcase in the living room and continued to the bottle of scotch in the kitchen. She grabbed a glass from the cabinet and held it as she poured herself a glass.

Rachel hesitantly walked into the kitchen. Dark eyes roamed critically over every available inch of Quinn's body before settling squarely on pale hands and long fingers. "Quinn, you're shaking."

Quinn stiffened at the soft timbre of Rachel's voice. She sat the glass down on the counter with a sigh. The hair on the back of her neck prickled with the proximity of Rachel's body and a warm hand was placed on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

She slowly turned around and Rachel's hand graduated from her shoulder, up her neck, to cup her cheek as if everything about their current situation was natural.

Her eyes had since dried and carried nothing but anxiety over Quinn's strange behavior. Rachel lifted her hand to place her palm flat against Quinn's forehead. "Do you have a fever?" she asked innocently. "Are you sick?"

Quinn almost sobbed in frustration at Rachel's ignorance over the situation they were in. She grabbed Rachel's wrist and tugged her hand away. The momentum caused Rachel to step forward and let loose a quiet gasp when she brushed against Quinn.

And Quinn just stared at her in silence. Her gaze walked over Rachel's smooth skin, and her thumb rubbed back and forth over the inside of Rachel's wrist to remind herself how soft she was.

Nothing was permanent.

Not her fingers ghosting over Rachel's skin, not her gaze burning down Rachel's unblemished throat. Not even the space between them.

Her stomach coiled tightly, and it felt like an open wound expanding an ache low in belly as she leaned closer. Rachel looked helpless and nervous as she looked up at Quinn and licked her lips with hope in her eyes.

Quinn exhaled softly. "I'm going to kiss you, okay?"

"Okay," Rachel rushed out in an eager breath and Quinn would have laughed had this moment not been tinged with desperation and uncertainty.

She leaned forward and her lips trembled as they touched Rachel's still ones. They were warm and soft like Rachel herself, and the softest sound tickled Quinn's throat. Though Rachel's lips remained still and closed off from the pair trying to coax hers open and Quinn pulled back, bemused. "Have you ever kissed anyone on the mouth before?" she felt the need to ask.

Rachel opened and closed her mouth with a few false starts because she had watched educational documentaries, but ultimately, "No, I have not."

Quinn smiled. "Okay. So, umm, that was a peck—what we just did."

"A peck?"

She nodded. "A quick meeting of lips. Like this." She leaned forward again and pressed her lips against Rachel's. She felt Rachel's entire body twitch into a smile and Quinn pulled away to see the grin on her face.

"Your lips are really soft, Quinn," Rachel murmured.

Quinn felt the back of her neck grow hot as she inclined her head as if to say thank you.

"What about the kisses I saw in the documentary?" Rachel ventured. "That's what I want."

"That's what you want, huh?"

She tried not to think about all the ways Rachel could die within the next few days or two years, and instead pushed off the counter to cup Rachel's face in her hands. "When you kiss someone—when you kiss _me_," Quinn corrected, "you have to move your lips."

Rachel sank right into Quinn's hands like putty. "How will I know how to move my lips?"

"You'll know," Quinn assured.

"Okay." Rachel grabbed at the sides of Quinn's coat around her waist and bunched the fabric in her hands in nervous energy as she rose to the tips of her toes. Her nose brushed along Quinn's and she shivered.

Quinn drew closer and pressed her lips against Rachel's once more. She held still for a moment, then dove in like a striking snake to fuse their lips more firmly together. She dotted kisses all along soft, plump lips until a quiet moan was heard. When Quinn realized it was Rachel who made the noise she groaned and used her thumb against Rachel's jaw to tug until Rachel's lips parted. She marveled at the fact that replicants could actually feel pleasure. Quinn remembered how LeRoy had told her he created Rachel to be essentially limitless in her ability to be just like a human. She could feel pleasure, was created to feel it the same way humans were.

Slowly, Rachel responded, tilting her head to the right until her lips slid across Quinn's. Her grip on Quinn's coat slackened and inquisitive hands went searching inside until the flat of Quinn's stomach was against her palms. Her hands splayed out as far as they could to touch Quinn everywhere and when the tip of her middle finger grazed the underside of Quinn's breast Quinn heaved a quick, surprised breath and pulled away.

Her eyes grew twice their size as she took in the light flush high in Rachel's cheeks and her reddened lips. "Is something wrong?" Rachel breathed thickly.

Quinn just shook her head. Her fingers traced along Rachel's warm face. Her throat constricted with all of her caged thoughts plaguing her, but she ignored them and smiled softly. "Happy first kiss."

Rachel grinned. "First of many."

Quinn's smile turned shaky, and she just nodded.


	10. Chapter 10

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **R

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

* * *

She felt like she was drowning. Drowning in her own lack of self-control, and that, more than anything, scared her. Quinn had amazing self-control, was used to showing restraint, especially when it came to things she wanted, like mouthing off at LeRoy with a crude, undercutting joke that even Puck hadn't thought of, slapping Santana across the face.

Rachel.

But not today. Today had been a long day of her taking what she wanted and though it was a thrill, it was also anxiety inducing. She wasn't used to this, giving into her thoughts and desires on a whim without a care of what would happen tomorrow. She was a thinker, planner. She didn't indulge in anything at all.

Today must have been opposite day, for all of her wants and desires were being acted upon.

She pushed Rachel into the wall beside her kitchen table and covered her mouth with her own. Rachel was a fast learner and the only sounds either of them uttered in the past three minutes were little, breathless moans and whimpers that accompanied the wet smack of their mouths.

Quinn's hands enclosed around Rachel's waist and the thought of her possessing something so powerful, destructive in her hands right now left her feeling lightheaded combined with the knowledge that Rachel could have killed her all this time, but wanted nothing more than to simply _be_ with her in every meaning of that word.

It was like a tamer handling a lion, Quinn and Rachel.

Her loyalty was disabling to Quinn, dismantled every thought, notion, and stereotype Quinn had previously held toward replicants, and was creating something completely new. New ideals that had yet to solidify, gelatinous in their novelty.

Rachel's hands were warm and _real_, holding onto Quinn's hips for dear life as pale hands and tapered fingers molded themselves up the contours of Rachel's back. Vague lines could barely be made out under the wool of Rachel's coat and Quinn reached the lapels of the jacket, tugging harshly.

Rachel barely moved.

She got the message, though, and tore her lips away from Quinn's with a faint whimper to impatiently fight out of her coat. Her eyes were black, heavy lidded as they made quick assessment of Quinn's body and tore off the trench coat she was wearing with two hands.

Then Rachel was back on her, arms winding around Quinn's waist to tug her closer when Quinn had stepped back in momentum from Rachel jerking her coat off. Those arms locked around her iron-tight, and Quinn, feeling had, roughly ran her hand up the back of Rachel's neck, grabbed her by the scruff, and tugged until Rachel moaned and stared up at her openly, nothing to hide, not even her desire.

Quinn's jaw tightened at the sight of it as heat pooled below. She leaned down and kissed her fully, brushing her lips over Rachel's top lip before focusing on her bottom one.

It was going to take some getting used to, being with a replicant, being with someone who could easily kill her without much effort. Every time Rachel enclosed thin arms around her that belied the strength just under the surface, Quinn couldn't help but feel trapped, smothered—prey.

But then Rachel would kiss her so ardently like she was doing now, as if killing Quinn was the absolute last thing on her mind, not even _on_ her mind at all.

Quinn sucked softly on her lower lip, running her tongue sideways along it, before gently sinking her teeth in. Rachel's hands flexed along her lower back to grip her shirt in a fist as she moaned and pulled back. Her face was flushed and she smiled brightly. "That felt really good," she husked in a low voice that Quinn had never heard before. "Can I bite you, too?"

Quinn hummed out an amused giggle, raising her eyebrows. "Softly."

Rachel nodded, and Quinn leaned in again. With little finesse, yet eagerness that more than made up for it, Rachel's teeth sunk into Quinn's bottom lip without pretense, and Quinn just smiled, oddly charmed.

Rachel pulled back to press a soft kiss to the corner of Quinn's mouth, then her cheek where she nuzzled with a contented hum.

Quinn's eyes slid closed with a trembling sigh crawling from her throat as reality began to settle in and chase away the tingles of arousal shooting down her spine with tingles of dread. She rubbed along Rachel's shoulders as if to declare a time out as she muttered, "We have a lot to talk about."

She felt Rachel's bottom lip jut out against her cheek, and almost smiled. Stepping back, Quinn took a deep breath and motioned for the living room. Rachel followed behind her and casted a worried glance at her suitcases, then at the back of Quinn's head before sitting beside her on the couch.

"Okay," Quinn sighed, clearing her throat to relieve its newly acquired hoarseness. "First off: why are you moving in?"

Rachel looked anxious almost immediately as her eyes widened. "I have nowhere else to go. And I'm closest to you out of everyone else in my life now, and I love you, so I thought I could move in and we could be together."

Her simplicity normally proved to be a balm from the harshness of the real world, but with Quinn's recent discharge and Santana's threat of coming after Rachel looming over her head, Rachel's desire to move in only incensed Quinn's apprehension.

She rubbed the palms of her hands down her thighs to give herself something to do, feeling restless as the conversation went on. "Why can't you live with LeRoy?"

Rachel's eyes tightened the barest hint before she looked away. "My father wishes to live with Hiram."

Quinn's lips parted into an _O_ of understanding as the conversation she had shared with LeRoy several hours ago came back to mind and the dodgy, hesitant way LeRoy was answering her questions. Quinn didn't entirely know the ins and outs of the Berry family, but she knew a rift in family dynamic when she saw one. "You don't want to live with them?"

Rachel shrugged a shoulder, but shook her head, confirming Quinn's suspicions. "I don't think Hiram likes me very much."

Quinn's brow furrowed. "Why would you think that?"

Rachel turned to look at her, looking for all the world like a lost girl. "He does not talk to me. He barely looks at me, and when he does he just looks regretful, and I don't know what I've done wrong."

"You haven't done anything wrong," Quinn told her, rather assertively, and she was surprised that she had spoken at all. She had grown up the picture perfect child and had unknowingly climbed atop a steep pedestal by the time she was sixteen. By the time she was eighteen, she had fallen so far down that she didn't even know her way back up and looks of regret from people who had put so much time and effort into her, her parents, were something she had seen once she had fallen down into pink hair, punk clothing, and girls. It took entering the blade runner academy to finally undo the damage previously done, though Quinn would always hold a small grudge against her parents.

Rachel scooted closer to lay her head on Quinn's shoulder. She looped her arm around Quinn's and hugged her close, then sighed. "Can I stay here, please?"

"I don't know if _here_ is the best place for you to stay."

"But why—"

"Sue and Santana—the ones who locked you up?" She felt Rachel nod in remembrance against her shoulder and continued. "They're going to be after you now because they think you killed Schuester."

"I heard about his death," Rachel admitted, once again ignoring her own fate, and it drove Quinn mad. "It is a tragedy to the whole corporation to lose the one who started it all, and _me_, basically." When Quinn didn't respond, Rachel pulled back to stare at her profile. "You don't think I did it, do you?" she asked feebly.

"I told them you didn't, but it's routine to ask—what am I even talking about?" she scoffed. "I've been fired."

Rachel's jaw dropped, and her entire body shifted on the couch to completely face Quinn. "They _fired_ you? Why?"

Quinn shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

Rachel ducked her head, picking at a loose strand on the hem of her black and gray plaid skirt. "It is because of me, isn't it?"

Quinn rubbed her lips together and leaned back against the couch.

"I really am sorry, Quinn," she continued. "I've made your life hell since the moment I stepped into it."

At that, Quinn smiled lopsidedly with little humor. "Ditto."

"You haven't," Rachel argued. Quinn lolled her head to the side to stare into Rachel's eyes, big and earnest as ever as she implored Quinn to understand. "You're the only person in my life who's been honest with me from the very beginning." She leaned forward and hesitated for a moment before lightly brushing her lips across Quinn's.

Quinn's eyes fluttered open to find Rachel staring at her adoringly with a crinkled nose. "What?"

"It tingles," Rachel whispered. "When I kiss you."

Quinn smiled. "What tingles?" She brought her hand up and brushed her thumb over Rachel's bottom lip. "Here?"

Rachel shook her head. She grabbed Quinn's hand and drew it down her torso until it reached her lower abdomen. "Here." Quinn swallowed when Rachel dragged their joined hands below the waistband of her skirt. "And her—"

Quinn jerked her hand back as if she had been burned.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked, bewildered.

Quinn licked her lips. "That's…a private area."

"Does that mean you can't touch it?"

"Not really?" Quinn sighed. She was the absolute last person who needed to be explaining sexual relationships.

Rachel's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "But in that…porn…film it seemed perfectly normal."

"It's normal to people who are sexually active with each other," Quinn explained.

"And we are not?"

"No."

"Will we ever be?" Rachel asked hopefully as she leaned closer.

Quinn kissed her in placation after she muttered, "Maybe." Never in a million years had she ever desired to have sex with a replicant, and this newfound attraction to Rachel of all people, things—_whatever_, left her a little confused as to how to proceed.

She rubbed at her bunched forehead as Rachel tilted her head to scrutinize her. "What?" Quinn asked.

"It's just that—how will you protect yourself now that you don't have a gun if I am not with you?"

Quinn mulled over the question for a moment, then smiled, enigmatic. "I'm not _completely _without."

* * *

She hadn't been to her parents' house in months, and nostalgia tickled the back of her mind as she parked along the street in front of it. She sighed and turned off the engine, grabbing Rachel's arm when Rachel went for door.

"Okay. Ground rules," Quinn began once Rachel turned to look at her. "My parents are very eccentric—ignore that. They're also very judgmental, which is why we are _not_ under any circumstances going to bring up the fact that you're a replicant. And lastly, if my mother offers to show you old photos of me, just say no."

Rachel grinned deep dimples in her cheeks at the prospect of seeing baby pictures, but nodded nonetheless.

Quinn opened her car door. "Okay, let's go."

Rachel's gaze swept over the abundance of green grass curiously considering it was below freezing outside in the dead of winter as they walked up the concrete pathway to the Fabray house.

Quinn knocked on the door then rocked back and gave Rachel a short look before her mother opened the door. Judy's eyebrows shot up her forehead in surprise as she smiled brightly. "Quinn! If I had known a phone call would have gotten you to visit I would called you weeks ago!" Judy looked from Quinn to Rachel then her smile turned curious. "Who's your friend?"

Rachel's eyes lit up at being called Quinn's friend and she extended her hand. "Rachel Berry. It's very nice to meet you, Mrs. Fabray."

Quinn waited patiently for them to exchange pleasantries before she stepped forward. "I actually can't stay long. Is dad here?"

Judy stepped aside as Quinn and Rachel walked into the house. "Downstairs in his little man cave. You know the drill."

Quinn kissed Judy on the cheek in thanks and walked away.

"Maybe one day you'll actually come to see me for a change!" Judy called after her. "Nice meeting you, Rachel!"

"It was lovely meeting you, as well!" Rachel called over her shoulder as she followed Quinn down the stairs.

They walked into a dimly lit room with a pool table directly to their right, a giant, flat screen TV across the room, and Quinn's father lying on the couch in front of it. Quinn cleared her throat so as to not startle him. His heart was becoming more sensitive with age and with one heart attack already under his belt, they all took necessary precautions to ensure he didn't have another one.

Russell grunted and leaned up to sit on the couch, casting a glance behind him. His lips parted into a thin smile as he regarded his youngest. "Is this a dream?"

Quinn rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. "Hi, dad."

Russell stood from the couch, pushing a hand into his pocket as he walked around it. "And you've brought a friend."

Rachel nodded. "Rachel Berry. It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

Russell looked affronted. "Sir? Just call me Russell, please. You make me feel like an old man."

He walked closer and Quinn wrapped her arms around his neck. "It's because you are, dad."

Russell patted her back gently then pulled back with a smile. "What can I do for my Quinnie?" His expression turned stern. "I hope you're not in trouble. You know the family doesn't need that kind of attention."

"No, no," Quinn cut in before he could embarrass her further in front of Rachel. She rocked back on her heels, suddenly shy under her father's scrutiny. "No, umm, actually I was wondering if I could have the gun?" she asked. "I'm twenty-one now, so…"

Recognition flickered in Russell's eyes. "Ah, right. My trusty steel." He smiled proudly and motioned for Quinn to follow him to a locked door. Keys jingled in his pocket as he fished them out and unlocked the door. Quinn hesitated by the doorway with her hand on the door before walking into the room. She had never seen it before. It had white walls and was completely bare, save for hunting guns her father used when he was younger and had a better heart for it. This must have been where he kept them this whole time to ensure that she and her sister never got near them. Rachel closed in on her heel, and Quinn absentmindedly reached back to brush her hand on Rachel's hip in reassurance as she walked further inside.

Russell stood in front of a chest of drawers, opening the second drawer directly at his stomach level and taking out a small box. He placed it on the table beside the chest and opened it. "I bought this gun over twenty years ago, when your sister was just a baby," he said conversationally.

"What kind is it?" Quinn asked as she took a step closer, eager to see over his shoulder. Rachel remained quiet behind Quinn as she acquainted herself with this room, this house, Quinn's life.

"M1911," he called over his shoulder. He loaded the gun, then spun around and dropped the weight of it in Quinn's hand. "Don't lose that thing. I'm trying to keep it in the family."

Quinn twirled it around in her hand in appreciation. "I won't."

"Your sister's a hippie and doesn't want guns anywhere near her." Russell scoffed. "You're the only one I could give it to and know you'd keep it."

Quinn laughed. "Fran's just different, that's all."

Russell made a rude noise of affirmation then smiled at the gun and at Quinn. "Want to go to the shooting range?"

Quinn smiled apologetically. "I can't, dad, sorry. I'm working on this case, and—"

Russell waved her off. "No need to explain. I understand. Go do your duty to serve this town and make it a safer place. You've always made me proud."

_That_ was a lie, but Quinn would take it. She gave her father another hug, accepted another round for the gun, and walked upstairs with Rachel in tow.

Judy was in the kitchen and Quinn poked her head in with a wave. "I'm leaving now, mom."

Judy tore the apron off herself and walked over to Quinn. "I didn't even get to speak with your friend!"

Rachel frowned in sympathy. "We'll have to fix that. I promise to make Quinn bring me over again soon so that we can get better acquainted."

Quinn's brain screeched to a halt. That wasn't part of the plan, and her glare toward Rachel informed her just that.

Judy smiled pleasantly at Rachel. "Well, at any rate, it's good to see that Quinn actually has girlfriends; she hangs out with those boys so much, you know."

Quinn smirked, knowing what her mother meant, but amused nonetheless. "Okay, we really need to go now."

Rachel waved bye to Judy and followed Quinn out of the house. "Your parents seem nice," she felt the need to point out once they were out of ear shot.

Quinn sighed as they walked to the car. "Seem, yeah. Everyone seems nice."

"You're nice."

Quinn shot her a wry look, and Rachel giggled.

"You're…fair," she amended.

"Fair." Quinn mulled over the word. "I _guess _I can be fair."

* * *

It was a long day, but it was finally over, and Quinn leaned back against her headboard with a weary sigh. Who knew what tomorrow would bring? Her life was at stake if she made one false, fatal move while going toe to toe with the two remaining replicants, and Rachel's life was at stake if Sue or Santana ever got their hands on her. Quinn couldn't help but think that Rachel living with her was unsafe for them both, but for the night she would let it slide.

The gun her father gave her was something he had been holding out to give her for her twenty-first birthday. It _technically_ wasn't legal for Quinn to be toting a gun around while she had been underage, but the blade runner academy had always adhered to its own rules. She had been training since she graduated high school, learning to retire replicants before Rachel was even 'born'.

Now she was in cahoots with one with no possible plan and every day she spent with Rachel, she couldn't help but dread the inevitable day she'd die, whether by force or natural retirement.

There was nothing natural about their unique situation, however.

She heard the floorboards creak and looked up to find Rachel staring at her, dressed in a towel from her shower and a messy, dark bun atop her head. She had the most hilarious deer in headlights expression on her face that broke into a smile as she continued into the room. Quinn silently watched Rachel walk about, whether in mistrust, curiosity, or out of a simple desire to, she wasn't sure anymore.

Rachel's legs were long, efficient for running with flexing calves and trim thighs. Quinn's gaze leisurely walked up the towel covering Rachel's bare form to the back of her neck when the towel suddenly dropped to the floor with an audible thump.

Quinn was quick to turn away, feeling her face warm as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "Do you always have to do that?" she needed to ask.

"Do what?"

"Be…naked," Quinn explained when her eyes fluttered back open to stare at the wall before her.

Rachel's eyebrows quirked upward. "I forgot about your…weirdness about nudity."

Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Can I ask you a question, though?"

She saw Rachel move toward her for the corner of her eyes, and completely turned away. "What?"

Hazel eyes dropped to the floor as Rachel's feet appeared directly in front of her, all body heat and promises. Quinn swallowed thickly, praying for self-control as she rubbed at the back of her neck. She felt Rachel place a hand on her shoulder and goose bumps broke out along her skin under her cotton night shirt.

"What is it about nudity that makes you uncomfortable?" Rachel asked.

Quinn's gaze rose on its own accord, separate from her own will until Rachel's smooth, slim thighs flooded her vision. Her eyebrow rose slowly, fingers twitching and she smoothed them down her own legs while she stared at Rachel's. "It just does."

Rachel's breathing grew labored as she asked, "Is it because you want to touch me? Because you can—if you want."

"I'm sure I can," Quinn murmured. Her gaze continued to rise and she knew this was the wrong thing to be doing right now. She remained silent as Rachel's folds came into view and Quinn quickly skated her gaze higher to Rachel's abdomen, soft yet firm just as her breasts were with dark nipples that always seemed to be standing at full attention.

Without conscious thought, Quinn seized Rachel by her waist and rose to her feet to crash their lips together, pushing Rachel into the wall behind her. Rachel's moan was instantaneous as she desperately cupped Quinn's face in her hands, clinging to her as she kissed her back. Quinn didn't know what was curiosity and what was her own arousal anymore as the palms of her hands smoothed along tan flesh. Her earlier question was sated at the feel of Rachel's warm skin under her fingertips, yielding pliantly to Quinn's inquisitive fingers. Quinn bit her like she knew Rachel liked and tugged on her lip until Rachel whined softly, squirming against the unforgiving wall.

She palmed Rachel's breast that dared protrude a nipple and it bit hotly into the palm of Quinn's hand. Rachel's head tipped back against the wall and Quinn attached her lips to her throat. She kissed a light trail down to her collarbone, then drew her tongue upward, pulling a throaty moan from Rachel as she tweaked her nipple.

"Does this actually feel good?" Quinn husked roughly against her ear. She bit down on the shell and Rachel whimpered. "Or are you just _made_ to make those sounds."

Rachel gasped, affronted, but then Quinn's thumb and forefinger closed around her nipple and tugged and she arched off the wall. "It feels good," she groaned. "So good. It feels—_I_ feel, Quinn. Can you?" she challenged.

Quinn smirked at her audacity, unsure as she was about the question. "What are you?"

Forcing down a thick swallow, Rachel's naked chest heaved into Quinn's hand with needless breaths. "Anything you want me to be," she whispered, eyes clenched shut. Her hips twitched when Quinn's dipped lower and a hot mouth enveloped your nipple. "I can be a combat model. I was made to fight," she continued breathlessly. "I can be an entertainment model, sing to you." Quinn wrapped both arms around her waist then bit the pebbled nipple in her mouth, and Rachel wheezed out a shuddery breath, fingers twitching at her side before she carefully slid them through Quinn's hair. "Or I can be a pleasure model. Whatever you want."

Quinn groaned around Rachel's breast at the last of her statement.

Her phone rang from across the bed on her nightstand and she hissed out an annoyed breath then pulled back to stare at Rachel sternly as if the interruption was her fault.

Rachel trembled against the wall, looking up at Quinn with remorse over the interruption before Quinn turned away. She slid across the bed, and roughly grabbed the phone and placed it against her ear. "What?"

"Geez, chill," Sam answered. "That's no way to answer the phone."

Quinn casted a wistful glance to Rachel stomping across the room to grab a night shirt from her suitcase. "What do you want, Sam?"

"I was just checking on you. Puck told me you got, umm, discharged."

Her frustration melted away at the obvious concern in his voice and she sighed, running her fingers through her hair as reality once again set in. "My dishonorable discharge? Yep, happened today."

"Heard you slapped that Santana girl today, too. Nice." He chuckled, and Quinn shrugged.

"Honestly, I've been waiting weeks to do that."

Rachel settled in beside her on the bed with a huff, and Quinn hesitated briefly on the phone at her presence, but decided to ignore that situation for a while.

"What are you gonna do now?"

"I don't know," Quinn mumbled truthfully.

"Look, how about we all do lunch tomorrow? My treat?"

Incensed, Quinn gripped the phone harder. "I can pay for my own lunch, Samuel, and don't need my intern friend with the promising future to do it. I'm not poor."

"So not what I meant!" he defended. "I was just saying—it's nice to do that, for a friend, and—"

"Okay, okay, you're right," Quinn conceded quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Just…get some rest, okay? I'll see you tomorrow."

Quinn nodded. "Good night."

"Who was that?" Rachel asked when she hung up the phone. "It was a man, and not Noah. And you said…Samuel? Or something…"

Quinn turned to look at her strangely, and Rachel at least had the decency to look sheepish as she ducked her head. "I could hear him."

"His name is Sam," Quinn explained slowly. "Am I going to have to send you into a different room when I'm on the phone?"

"I don't do it on purpose!" Rachel whined. "It just happens."

Quinn quirked an unimpressed eyebrow at her explanation. "Uh-huh." She leaned over on her side of the bed to place her phone on the nightstand next to her gun. Then she switched off her alarm clock that she would no longer be needing for a while.

Rachel watched Quinn climb under the blankets with a loud, disgruntled sigh.

Quinn looked over at Rachel where her arms were folded across her chest as she sat with her back rigid against the headboard. "Why are you pouting?"

Rachel's arms flopped down and smacked against her bare thighs in frustration. "I had…romantic ulterior motives," she admitted, biting her lip.

Quinn's lips twitched though her eyes held skepticism. "Did you now?"

Rachel nodded. "I was going to seduce you. Make love to you and ask you to move away with me."

"Move…away?"

"Up north."

"To Canada?"

Rachel scooted down along the bed and propped her head on her hand, elbow digging into the mattress as the fingers of her other hand toyed with beige bed sheets. "Just—we could be together then, you know? And not have to worry."

Quinn's eyes softened. She cupped the side of Rachel's face and exhaled quietly. "They would find us."

Rachel nodded as her head dropped in disappointment. "Of course they would."

She looked wholly defeated and Quinn just gathered her in her arms and lied back on the bed to stare up at the ceiling. "Just go to sleep for now."

Fingers gripped the edge of her shirt and held her close as Rachel laid her head on Quinn's chest.

It was sometime later when Quinn was still awake and staring at the unanswered questions she had burned into her ceiling that she broke her staring contest with it and asked Rachel one of them. "Rachel?"

Rachel's voice was faint. "Yes?"

Quinn pursed her lips. "If you would kill to have anything on this Earth, what would it be?"

Rachel was still for a moment, then she lifted her head from Quinn's chest to stare down at her intensely. Quinn's chest constricted under her stare as she felt herself sink into the mattress.

"More time," Rachel answered simply, though her voice was solemn. "To be with you."

* * *

Quinn pounded her fist into Puck's door five times, then dropped back a step and waited for him to answer. Rachel stood just beside her, inquisitive as ever as she glanced around their surrounding area.

Initially, Quinn had been surprised at how easy it was to get Rachel from point A to point B without her being identified as a replicant. She had even taken Rachel into her family's _home_ without incident, which was spectacular. She then had to remember how she herself had no clue Rachel was a replicant at first, that it took a subtle slip up that, had Quinn not been looking for it, probably would have gone undetected. It both amazed and unnerved her how LeRoy could create something this close to the real thing.

She heard a grunt on the other side of the door, and Rachel giggled. "I do not think he's happy that we're here."

"He'll get over it."

The door swung open to show Puck looking disgruntled in nothing but a pair of boxers. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly, voice thick as he simply said, "Q, what the fuck?"

Quinn pushed past him and Rachel followed inside. "Good morning, Noah."

At the sound of Rachel's voice, he perked up. "Morning, babe."

Quinn shot him a warning look from across the room, but didn't comment. She sank into a couch behind her. "I wanted to catch you before you went to work."

Rachel lingered by Quinn, too interested in Puck's living room to actually sit. She saw a stack of albums in the corner and made a beeline for them.

Puck shuffled into a chair by the door and blinked the blurriness out of his eyes. "For what?"

"I think I know what they're trying to do." Quinn's voice held an eagerness to it that surprised Puck as he sat back in his seat.

"Who?"

"The replicants."

"Who cares?"

Quinn scoffed. "Everyone who works at the corp because their lives are at stake."

From the corner of the room, Rachel swiftly turned around. "My father?" She walked closer to Quinn in hesitation then sat down beside her. "Is my father in danger?"

"I don't really know," Quinn admitted. "I'd say anyone who gets in their way is in danger at this point."

"Okay, enlighten me a little. What's going on here?" Puck asked.

"I think they came back here to get more time."

His expression turned perplexed, skeptical. "More time?"

Quinn casted a sideways glance to Rachel and sighed. "More time to live."

"They're not _alive_," Puck pointed out. He glanced at Rachel. "No offense."

Rachel straightened in her seat. "None taken. Though for the record I would like to argue the opposite. We are very much alive. At least, I am."

Quinn bit her lip in thought. "Think about it," she prompted after a moment. "They've completely humanized on us, expressing anger; Mercedes just looked resigned to her fate when I said I was gonna shoot her. I've never seen _any_ replicant do that before. She looked _relieved_, Puck."

He shook his head. "You're losing it, Q."

"Maybe," she admitted. "Maybe I am losing it. But they're carrying around momentous with them, like the photos we saw in that shoebox at the hotel."

Puck's eyebrows knitted together as if he were actually considering it. "Those are just coincidences," he decided.

"They choked Hiram out and killed Schuester. Hell, I'll draw you a damn map," Quinn spat. "They've been switching locations and getting progressively closer to the corp. They started in Lima Heights; we found Mercedes at the mall; the others were in the hotel—ten blocks from the corp. And now they've infiltrated it and killed Schuester."

He shifted uncomfortably, the chair creaking below him under the strain. "Or Rachel did."

Rachel stiffened in offense, sucking in an audible breath.

"No offense, I mean, you're hot and all, and obviously you've got Q under some spell."

"Excuse me?" Quinn gritted out.

"Look, all I'm saying is maybe you've gotten so close to Rachel to the point where you can't notice that she's probably the replicant that killed him."

"I did not murder him!" Rachel shouted, voice shaking. As unpredictable as she was when experiencing extreme emotions, she was probably going to put a hole through something soon, and Quinn placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.

Puck trained his eyes on Quinn. "She's the only replicant who has access to a heavily secured building, Quinn. Come on."

"Quinn, you've got to believe me," Rachel pleaded. She grabbed Quinn's arm to get her attention and Quinn regarded the distressed look that had taken hold of Rachel's features. "I would never kill anyone, unless it was to protect you or my father. Please say you believe me."

Quinn chewed on her lower lip. "There's got to be cameras in there." She glanced from Rachel to Puck. "Tell me you can get us footage."

"So what? You think the others got past security? How?"

"I don't know!" Quinn exploded. "I don't even _care_ how they got in there. All I know is that they killed Schue."

Puck leaned back and folded his arms "Why?" he prompted, humoring her.

"Maybe he refused to give them more time to live."

"Or maybe he told them there was no way _he_ could. Mr. Schuester hired scientists and technicians to construct the replicants. He did not build them himself," Rachel explained. "And with how emotionally unstable the replicants have grown to be, Mr. Schuester denying them—though there was no conceivable way he could even have helped them—probably angered them enough to kill him."

"They already went after Hiram," Quinn mused after a moment. "Who's next?"

Rachel's teeth sunk into her lower lip in apprehension as she mulled over Quinn's question. "I think my father would be," she whispered.

Quinn stood from her seat. "We should go," she told Rachel. "And figure this out while you—" She glanced at Puck, "go to work and get that footage."

Puck stood up and grabbed the handle of the door, twisting and opening to let them out. "I can't lie," he began once Quinn and Rachel were out in the hallway. "It's nice that you're the fuck up at work for a change instead of me."

"I've been fired," Quinn replied without missing a beat. "So you're _still_ the fuck up at work."

He made a face, then closed the door and Rachel laughed.

* * *

"Do you think that my father is going to die, Quinn?" Rachel prompted once they exited the elevator on Quinn's floor.

"Honestly?" Quinn looked over at her. "It's a possibility." Rachel ducked her head, and Quinn nudged her with her shoulder until she looked up. "Look, we'll go talk to your dad, okay? Maybe I can be a security guard for him or something, and—"

"But then you'll be in danger," Rachel pointed out. "I don't want that. You could die."

Quinn flashed a thin, enigmatic smile. "Someone once told me 'everybody dies.'"

Rachel faltered in reply. "T-that may be true, but there are ways to prolong the inevitable and acting as a body guard against replicants is _not_ one of those ways. Furthermore…"

Quinn's expression grew grave as they walked closer to the door. There was a small note plastered on it, and she ripped it off as soon as she got to it and held it out in front of her.

_I know who lives here._

That was all the message said, and Quinn flipped it over to see if there was any writing on the back as dread shot down her spine like iced water.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked when she noticed Quinn's sudden stillness. She leaned closer to read the note and gasped quietly. "I-is this about me?" Rachel whispered. "Or you?"

Quinn glanced up and all around them for any sign of someone watching them. Her voice was clipped, strained, as she coolly answered, "I've never gotten anything like this before."

"So it is because of me, then," Rachel muttered. Her eyes grew sharp, angry as she glanced over her shoulder for any intruders.

Quinn fumbled for her house key and stuck it through the keyhole. "We should go inside."

She closed and locked the deadbolt behind them, then peered out of the peephole to see if anyone was there.

Then she grabbed her gun from inside of her coat, and held it stiffly in her grasp as she moved about the house. "The real question is: who sent this?"

Rachel checked the bedroom as Quinn pushed aside the shower curtain in the bathroom to find the tub empty. They met back in the hallway, and Rachel asked, "The people at your job who want to kill me?"

Indignity shot straight through Quinn at the possibility of Sue or Santana even thinking about harassing her at her home. "I don't know, but I'll sure as hell find out."


	11. Chapter 11

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

**A/N:** To the anon (Guest? I hate the way this website keeps changing) who commented on my would be finesse: thank you so much! :) I read that review and promptly blushed, haha.

And to the anon who suggested Mass Effect 3—I'm not much of a gamer, but I'll certainly try that out, thank you!

And to everyone else who's kind enough to leave me reviews, thank you so much. I normally reply back, but the summer heat + working leaves me exhausted and wondering when adulthood managed to catch up with me. I just haven't had the energy to reply back to everyone like I usually do, but I sincerely appreciate the love.

* * *

The door to the precinct slammed closed and everyone looked up to find Quinn storming through the building. She ignored their glares of betrayal and mistrust and stormed straight through to Sue's office. Sue was sitting behind her desk with the office phone attached to her ear. Quinn slammed the door shut, and Sue grabbed the phone, pausing mid-sentence to gaze up at Quinn striding over to her desk.

The palms of Quinn's hands slammed loudly on Sue's wooden desk and without a care of who was on the other line, she growled, "Don't you _ever_ threaten me in my home again."

Sue glanced down at the note Quinn hand slammed onto the table and hung up the phone without another word. With effort, she pried it from under Quinn's palm and read over the note with a bland expression. "Unimaginative," Sue finally uttered.

Quinn stood up fully, fists clenched at her sides as she glowered down at Sue with narrowed eyes. "You mean to tell me you didn't leave this note on my door?"

Sue sighed and leaned back in her seat. "This is a tacky, reckless threat with no thought behind it. In fact, I should call security on you for even insinuating, with this filth on my desk, that I lack creativity."

She scrutinized Sue calculatingly for a long moment of silence that stretched between them. Quinn had no room left to simply dismiss people who had turned into her enemies, feeling backed into a corner. _Someone_ or _something_ had left that note for either her or Rachel, or both, which unavoidably meant that the both of them were in danger, probably more so when together. She took a deep breath, feeling her chest flutter with her rapidly beating heart in what was most probably fear. "You didn't do it," she stated again.

Sue's nose scrunched as if smelling the stench of Quinn's fear. She sneered. "How the mighty have fallen, hmm?"

It wasn't a foreign concept to Quinn.

She spun on her heels with her back to Sue and walked out of her office. Her eyes were wide in her head, her breathing light and rapid as she cut a sharp right to Santana's office. Her door was open and Quinn barged right in.

Santana glanced up at her then sprang up in her seat with tense shoulders. "What the hell are you doing back here, Fabray? If you think you can pull the same shit last time and get away with it, you aren't going to be as lucky without Puck here to hold me back."

Quinn held up a hand to quiet Santana's rant. "I didn't come here for that," she admitted.

"Then why are you here?"

Frustration at her own carelessness grew inside of Quinn and she ran a hand through her hair as her mind quickly ran over the list of enemies she had potentially made since signing on to the case. Sue, Santana, LeRoy, and by association, Hiram, and Shelby—though she doubted the latter two would pull something like this. Shelby seemed to care for Rachel and LeRoy both, and Quinn doubted that Hiram would go against LeRoy's love for Rachel to harm her no matter how much Rachel claimed he disliked her. But if the threat had been intended for _Quinn_ because of her association with Rachel…

It could be anyone trying to get under her skin, kill her, whichever.

"Did you leave a note on my door?" Quinn flat out asked, exasperation edging around the corners of her monotone voice.

Santana's eyes narrowed in confusion, mouth puckering for a moment before she spat, "_What_?" past her lips.

Quinn smoothed out the crumpled paper in her hand and practically threw it at Santana. "Did. You. Leave. This. On. My. Door."

Santana took one look at the paper and scoffed, flipping it over to the blank side. "I'm so not the 'stalk you to your home and leave a message type.' I'm more of a 'bash a bitch upside her head until the gets the point' type." She stepped closer to Quinn until they were nose to nose and Quinn straightened to her full height until Santana had to slightly crane her neck to make eye contact. "And if you wants to get acquainted with _that_ girl, stick around."

Blood boiled just beneath her skin, heat encasing her bones with white hot anger. It was more directed at the situation she and Rachel were in than Santana. Taking a deep breath, Quinn stepped back from the obvious invitation for confrontation and stalked out of the office.

"Not ready to tango now that your partner's not here?" Santana mocked.

Quinn ignored her. She casted a glance to Puck's office to find the door closed and the light appearing to be off from what she could see of the little window on his office door.

He was probably already down at the corp digging for evidence.

There was nothing left for Quinn here. There was nothing left for her in this entire town, and she began to wonder why she was even still here, risking her life, dealing with people she didn't care for.

* * *

There was nothing on her apartment door when she arrived, but it left Quinn with little solace as she closed the door behind her, twisting the locks. "Rachel?" She was conscious of how near desperate her voice sounded, but couldn't stop it. "Rachel, are you here?"

Rachel poked her head out from the kitchen, then her entire body and quickly walked to Quinn, having picked up on the distress in her voice. "I'm here, Quinn. I'm fine. I was just tasting the interesting food in your refrigerator." She cupped Quinn's face in her hands and gave her a reassuring smile before her eyes raked down Quinn's body in assessment for any possible injuries. "Are you?"

Quinn heaved a sigh and nodded. "I'm fine." She hadn't expected to be as relieved as she was feeling at the knowledge that Rachel was safe, here in her apartment for another day.

Rachel's thumb rubbed back and forth across Quinn's cheek soothingly and hazel eyes fluttered closed, brow furrowing. "Don't do that," Rachel scolded in a warm murmur.

"Do what?" Quinn grumbled in a rough, tired voice.

"Think so much."

Her eyelashes lifted from her cheeks and she stared down at the bottomless optimism shining in dark eyes. "How can you not think so much at a time like this?"

Rachel's teeth dug into her bottom lip for a moment. "I am…resigned to my fate. Death is natural, no?"

Quinn looked away. She drew her lips into her mouth as her eyes began to sting. She was such a fool.

Rachel ran her hands up and down Quinn's arms as she worriedly tried to meet her gaze. "You really aren't doing too well right now." Her hands fell down to Quinn's and gave them a gentle squeeze before she wrapped her arms around Quinn's waist. "Hey," she called softly. "Look at me?"

Breath hitching at the sound of Rachel's voice, Quinn just shook her head as her vision began to blur. There was so much she wasn't sure of anymore, and too many feelings to even articulate.

"Quinn," Rachel murmured sadly. She tugged Quinn closer and rested her head against her collarbone. Quinn's heartbeat was quick and erratic right against Rachel's ear and she turned her head to kiss Quinn square in the chest. "I know that you have feelings for me. I know that you _feel_, Quinn Fabray," Rachel began carefully. When Quinn didn't respond either way, she continued. "And perhaps in my pursuit of your affections I have been selfish." She licked her lips and burrowed further into Quinn's chest. "I am sorry that caring for me hurts you as much as it does."

A lone tear slid down Quinn's cheek. Her hands found Rachel's lower back with fingers that trembled in hesitation. She wasn't as accustomed to Rachel's impermanence as she had originally thought. Or maybe it was her own impermanence that was weighing down heavily on her shoulders. As a reckless teenager with pink hair, mortality was a foreign concept. This case had aged her to near death, so maybe she would die right along with Rachel.

Faint humming rattling her chest dragged her from the crevices of her dark thoughts and arrested her attention as Rachel's lips vibrated against her chest with a lilting hum of something Quinn didn't recognize. Her chin rested against the side of Rachel's head and she opened her mouth, practically panting quick breaths to keep up with her racing heart. She inhaled deeply until her chest expanded against Rachel's head, then released it, her stomach concaving once more. All the while Rachel held her grounded to the middle of her living room.

She had thought she was the more grounded one, in tune with stability as the door to her apartment often swung open and closed with Rachel's big, whirlwind presence at will. She was the strong one every time Rachel cried. It was routine, and Quinn was used to routine, liked routine.

This was new. Her tearing up and unsure, and just fucking out of tune with her own feelings, and Rachel holding her together like Elmer's Glue.

It had been years since anyone had ever cared about her this way, and probably the only time in her life anyone's every loved her so unconditionally as she was sure Rachel did. A fucking _replicant_ of all things was capable of loving this way. If someone had told Quinn this—well, she would be eating her hat. Again.

She pulled back after a moment to wipe at her flushed face.

"Are you okay?" Rachel's voice was so faint Quinn thought it would break. She rolled her shoulders back and cupped Rachel's face in her hands.

Her wide eyed innocence of the world had yet to diminish. Perhaps that was why her love for Quinn was so unwavering, pure. Quinn leaned forward and kissed her softly, unwilling to be the one to tear away Rachel's virtue no matter how grave and life threatening the situation was.

Rachel's response was instant; she clasped her hands around Quinn's resting on her face and pushed her entire body into Quinn pleadingly. Her mouth was warm and soft when Quinn slipped her tongue inside, and she groaned and tugged Rachel closer. Warm puffs of air stroked against the edge of her mouth as Rachel tilted her head and rose up until her chest was pushing into Quinn's.

The heat emanating off of Rachel made Quinn reluctant to pull away. Her dress was doing nothing to conceal her stiff nipples and the warmth settled below her waist that intrigued Quinn to even think about. Rachel whimpered against her jaw when Quinn ended the kiss and, experimentally, dipped her tongue into the cleft in her chin. Quinn hummed a quiet moan and grazed her teeth along her own lip for self-control.

"Come on," she murmured. Her voice was thick and heavy and Rachel's eyelids lowered even further as she leaned up to pepper kisses along Quinn's jawline.

"Where are we going?"

"To see your father."

Rachel sucked in a huge breath and in an instant, her cloudy eyes cleared with concern. It almost made Quinn laugh, how Rachel could swing from one emotion to the next so abruptly and without a hint of subtly.

But that was okay, because Rachel wasn't exactly subtle.

* * *

There were boxes outside of LeRoy's apartment door, presumably Hiram's, and Rachel narrowed her eyes at them as she led the way to the doorstep. She produced a key from the tiny satchel at her side and jiggled the door open. "Hello?" She poked her head inside the apartment and Quinn entered right behind her. "Daddy, are you here?"

LeRoy came rushing around the corner with Hiram in tow. They both came to a screeching halt at the sight of Rachel and Quinn. Hiram's spine straightened as he dropped back a step, but LeRoy continued forward, glancing warily at Quinn as he approached Rachel. "It's so good to see you, baby girl." He sounded like a weary father who had been up all night with a cup of coffee, waiting for his daughter to come home.

Rachel was all too happy to fling her arms around LeRoy in a warm hug. "Hi, daddy." She pulled back and smiled at him, and Quinn shifted uncomfortably behind them as she ran her eyes over LeRoy's apartment. It was swanky, a penthouse, and Quinn reasoned he could more than afford it. There was a staircase in the far corner just before the kitchen, and she briefly pondered what the rest of the place looked like before focusing on LeRoy again.

His expression had hardened since releasing Rachel from his grasp, and Quinn glanced at Rachel nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her ear before tentatively speaking to Hiram. Quinn stepped forward. "Good morning."

LeRoy's lips pressed into a hard line. "I hope you've only come here to bring Rachel back."

"Where Rachel lives is her choice," Quinn responded coolly. She flicked an eyebrow to Hiram, quiet and pensive in the corner. "Hello, Mr. Berry."

He nodded, and Quinn sighed at how difficult this was all going to be. She wondered why she was even bothering with this at all.

"Look, I came to talk to you about the replicants," Quinn told them.

"What about them?" LeRoy asked.

"Well, they're probably going to kill you."

LeRoy's face was stricken with surprise followed by fear almost immediately and Rachel bit her lip, looking between the two of them as Hiram reached forward to grasp LeRoy's tricep.

Quinn glanced at Hiram. "Oh, you, too," she assured, and Hiram's expression turned sour. When no one spoke, Quinn offered, "Now if you put away your hostility we can sit down and discuss the best possible course of action—"

"What course of action?" LeRoy interrupted. "They strangled Hiram into a coma and somehow slipped past security to kill William Schuester. If they want me dead then I'll likely die."

"Daddy, I would never let you die," Rachel promised, and all three of them looked down at her. "Not while I'm alive."

Quinn's eyebrows pinched together in irritation. "Perhaps we can all discuss this instead of sentencing ourselves to death."

LeRoy hesitated before muttering, "Sure," and leading them all into the living room. There were two couches directly across from each other, and Quinn took residence in the first one she passed, unsurprised when Rachel sat closely next to her.

LeRoy and Hiram took a seat on the opposite couch and Hiram ran his hand through his hair before smoothing the palms of his hands down his thighs, fidgeting. LeRoy gave him a small smile of encouragement, and Rachel's lips pursed as she scooted closer to Quinn.

"If I may begin?" Quinn spoke up to gather everyone's attention.

"Yes, I suppose we should." LeRoy leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, rubbing at his bunched forehead. "What do they want with me?"

"It's my understanding that you construct the replicants, give them their kill switch."

"I'm not the only Schuester Corp employee who constructs replicants," LeRoy explained.

"But you _are_ the only employee who handles the kill switch," Quinn confirmed. "You mix the acids that someday end up corroding the replicants' mainframe after their four year span, correct?"

Rachel met LeRoy's eyes for a brief moment before her gaze dropped. Her lower lip trembled, and she bit down harshly on it before scooting even closer to Quinn.

LeRoy watched their interaction closely as Quinn glanced down at Rachel for a long, tense moment that he didn't understand. "Yes," he finally answered, darting his gaze from Rachel to Quinn. "I handle their kill switches."

Quinn nodded. "I believe that the replicants have been looking for a way to elongate their life span, to extend the time for their kill switch to take effect or to do away with their kill switches all together." She looked over to Hiram and he fidgeted uncomfortably. "I believe that's why they strangled you. They've been going after the wrong corporation employees. You're the right one," she told LeRoy. "And if you aren't careful, you're going to get yourself killed."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," LeRoy rushed. "What do you mean they want a longer life span? They aren't—they're not made to wish for those things. Only _Rachel_ is conscious enough of herself as an individual to warrant a desire to live."

"_Your_ corporation is the one that keeps pushing the 'more human than human' slogan, Dr. Berry," Quinn replied tightly. "According to you this is exactly how they should be."

"They're replicants!" he cried.

"They've _evolved_!" Quinn shot back. "All that growing and developing into humans you created the kill switch to ensure they didn't do? They've already done it. But here's the flip side: they're psycho killers because they can't properly emote yet. So they've been out there killing people because they want to live longer, but they don't have a fucking conscience to even feel guilty about it!"

"Can everyone take a deep breath?" Rachel asked the entire room, though her eyes were focused on Quinn. "You're all making me anxious."

LeRoy leaned back in his seat with a heavy sigh. Hiram sat ramod straight on his own couch cushion, not uttering a word as everyone spoke around him.

"I give them kill switches to ensure things like this don't happen," LeRoy said quietly. "But you're right. If a longer life has really been what they've been killing everyone for, then…they've evolved. Into monsters."

"I'm not a monster, am I, daddy?" Rachel asked in the stretch of silence between them.

The corner of LeRoy's mouth lifted into a half smile. "You're daddy's best creation."

Quinn expected Rachel to smile but instead a look of melancholy eclipsed Rachel's normally bright features.

"But for the life of me, I can't understand," LeRoy began in a quiet, pensive voice. "How did they manage to make it past security?"

Hiram tensed at his side and rubbed the palms of his hands together. He looked at all three of them then dropped his gaze to the floor. "With my employee pass to the building," he said quietly.

LeRoy turned toward him, aghast, and Rachel slowly leaned forward in her seat.

"He was choking me," Hiram explained.

"Who?" Quinn asked.

"Sebastian. He said he was going to kill me if I didn't help him. He-he kept asking about the kill switch and longevity, and I told him I didn't know anything about that and that I couldn't help him—I held out for as long as I could." Hiram looked around to the pinched expressions on everyone's faces, especially Rachel's and his posture grew wary of her presence. "I was about to pass out. I could barely speak, and I didn't want to die, so I told him. I told him about Schuester and that if he just…_talked_ to Schuester and LeRoy then maybe they could work on extending their lifespans."

"You mentioned my father's name," Rachel stated coldly.

"I didn't know they would do this!" Hiram shouted. "I didn't know they were going to kill Schuester and if I had have known I never would have pointed them in your direction," he told LeRoy. "I just didn't want to die. But they kept strangling me anyway."

"Clearly not enough," Rachel growled. Before anyone could react, she lunged across the floor to the other couch. Hiram cried out in fear as Rachel crashed into him, hands wrapping tightly around his neck and on instinct, LeRoy shot up from the couch as he felt it falling backward. Rachel and Hiram spilled out of the couch and onto the hardwood floors as Rachel straddled Hiram's waist and locked her arms at her elbows to forcefully hold him to the floor.

Shocked, Quinn's jaw dropped as she slowly stood from her seat.

"Do something!" LeRoy shouted at her. He walked around the couch to where Rachel and Hiram were in a heap on the floor and hissed loudly down at Rachel. "You get off of him _right_ _now_!"

If Rachel heard him, she didn't react as her gaze remained impassively on Hiram.

Quinn swallowed down her shock over the situation and walked over to LeRoy. Her movements felt sluggish as she finally rounded the couch to find Rachel strangling the life out of Hiram who was already reddening in the face.

"Why are you just _standing_ there?" LeRoy yelled, in near hysterics as he watched the person he loved murdering another person he loved.

"What do you expect me to do—shoot her?" Quinn shouted back, finally finding her voice, though it was thick with anxiety. Her gun suddenly felt heavy with awareness in the pocket of her coat. This was her job, _was_ being the operative word. This was the point where she shot Rachel in the head, because Hiram was human and Rachel wasn't. This was what segregated Rachel from the rest most of all, and Quinn did not want to be the one to make this call.

"Rachel," she choked out. "Rachel, you gotta let him go."

Rachel grunted in recognition of Quinn's statement though her fingers failed to unwrap themselves from around Hiram's neck. "This is his fault, Quinn."

Quinn rubbed at the back of her neck, feeling like now was the time to make a decision because Hiram's struggle against Rachel's hold on him was starting to turn sluggish. "I know," she agreed quietly. "But this isn't the way."

"Isn't this how humans solve their issues?" Rachel challenged through gritted teeth. "Murder." Her hands flexed around Hiram's throat and he gurgled out a cry, clawing at Rachel's arms, though she barely flinched.

LeRoy's frantic yelling of, "_Do_ _something!_" was directly in her ear, putting Quinn even more on edge, and she squatted down to the floor, kneeling right beside a slowly dying Hiram and Rachel.

She glanced down at Hiram for a moment before solely focusing on Rachel. "Occasionally," she admitted. "But I always thought you were above that. You're better than half the humans out there, and you know in your heart that this is wrong."

Quinn closely watched the lines of Rachel's body, how her elbows began to draw inward, and she imagined Rachel's grip slackening around Hiram's neck. "Were I to kill him right now, would you shoot me?" Rachel asked quietly, glancing at Quinn and showing the first signs of humanity in the past several seconds that felt like minutes as they ticked onward.

Quinn's jaw tightened, voice just as quiet as she admitted, "No."

No one said a word for a long moment. Not even LeRoy, and Quinn was beginning to wonder if he had passed out. Slowly, one by one, Rachel began to peel her fingers away from Hiram's neck. As soon as air was available, Hiram gulped a giant breath and began coughing, grasping at his neck with one hand while he used the other hand to scramble away from Rachel kneeling above him.

Rachel glanced down at her hands, turning them over as if they were some alien part of her. Quinn cautiously scooted closer, but froze when Rachel looked over at her, eyes wide and dark, looking like a trapped animal. Rachel flung herself at Quinn and released a shuddery breath against her neck before she burrowed her entire face there.

"I want her retired!" Hiram croaked hoarsely. LeRoy ran to his side, shushing him. "No!"

Rachel shook in Quinn's arms with silent sobs.

"You! Detective!"

Quinn shot Hiram a cold look.

He continued, undeterred. "It's your job to—"

"I'm no longer a blade runner," Quinn cut in as she loosely wrapped her arms around Rachel's trembling frame. "And even if I was, I wouldn't retire her."

"What do I have to do?" LeRoy asked, voice tinged with desperation as he tried to balance calming Hiram down and speaking with Quinn. "What do I have to do to make this all go away?"

Quinn sighed as her arms tightened around Rachel.

* * *

"I'm a murderer."

"You didn't murder anyone."

"But I almost did."

"You didn't—you made a conscious decision."

"Only because you were there to tell me to stop."

"Sometimes people need others there to stop them from making a bad decision."

Quinn stood propped against the doorframe to the bathroom as Rachel leaned over the sink with her head buried in it for a reason Quinn had yet to understand. Her voice was muffled and strained with weariness and guilt. They had been at this for an hour, and though Quinn's feet were starting to get cold, balanced on the hardwood floors of her hallway and the tiled floors of the bathroom, she maintained her spot right by the door.

"Have you ever needed anyone there?"

"No one's ever _been_ there," Quinn replied with a rueful chuckle. "Or at least that's what I've always told myself right before making a stupid decision."

"Weren't Noah and…Sam there?"

"They had their moments," she admitted. "In high school everyone's selfish, you know? Everyone's got their own thing going on and we could never pull our heads out of our own asses long enough to see that others were hurting just like us. We're a lot better friends to each other now than we were back then."

Rachel blindly outstretched her arm in search for Quinn, and Quinn clucked her tongue in slight amusement before stepping forward and clasping Rachel's hand. "You have me now," Rachel murmured.

"I would if you would take your head out from under the faucet."

Her thumb dragged almost absentmindedly along the back of Rachel's hand as Rachel finally stood up straight, lolling her head to the side to face Quinn. She took a step closer. "If you could just hold me?"

Quinn nodded without a sound and not more than a second later she was cradling Rachel's face against her chest as strong arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

"That can't happen again," Quinn told her after a moment. "You've got to learn to control your actions when you're feeling distressed or angry, okay?"

Times like this reminded her that Rachel was essentially just a _baby_, two years old and still learning how to reel in her emotions and contain them instead of lashing out with tantrums that proved lethal. Quinn was hardly the one to talk about self-control considering she had been doing a poor job in exercising it the last few days, but the last thing she needed right now was Sue and Santana breathing down her neck because Rachel murdered someone. The only reason they hadn't killed Rachel off by now was because they had two other replicants that were actually killing people to tend to.

"Okay," Rachel murmured. "I'm sorry. Okay? I'm really sorry."

"That was…kind of scary," Quinn admitted with a small laugh in an attempt to downplay how nervous the situation they were in earlier made her. "I had never seen you like that before."

Rachel pulled back immediately to stare up at Quinn with large, dark eyes. "That didn't—you aren't afraid of me, are you?"

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Do I have a reason to be? Besides the obvious."

"No," was Rachel's urgent reply as she shook her head. "I would never…"

She brought a hand up to smooth down Rachel's already perfect bangs. "Okay."

"I wouldn't ever want you to be afraid of me."

"Sometimes I forget that you're a replicant." Quinn bit her lip. "I mean, I _know_ that you are, theoretically, but I don't get to see _that_ side of you often, so it's easy to forget that this docile little thing clinging to me," she smiled at the sight of Rachel's nose crinkling at the description, "is in fact very strong and very deadly."

"Sorry," Rachel mumbled.

"Don't be sorry for what you are." Sometimes talking to Rachel made Quinn feel like she was talking to a sixteen, seventeen, hell, _eighteen_ year old version of herself. "That's—you can't change that. So just accept it."

Rachel fell against her again in a long hug with tightening arms and hands splayed against her back that surprisingly didn't scare Quinn. She had just seen Rachel almost murder Hiram and for some reason instead of cowering in fear and kicking Rachel out, the only thing could think to do in this moment was offer whatever comfort to Rachel she could because Rachel was obviously drowning in her own regret right now.

"I didn't mean to do that," Rachel whispered against Quinn. "I just—it was his fault that my father's in danger and that you'll subsequently be in danger once you visit his office to act like bait, and I wanted-I wanted Hiram to suffer as badly as I do."

"He's suffered enough, though," Quinn argued gently. "He was in a coma and almost lost his life. He was just a scared man, trying to extend his own life by offering up what little information he could."

"At the expense of my father's life and Mr. Schuester's."

"I don't think he knew," she admitted. "I believe him when he said he just sent the replicants to discuss with Schuester the possibility of a longer life, not kill him."

"Well, he's dead. And now you're putting yourself in harm's way by acting as a decoy for my father."

The skin around Quinn's eyes crinkled as she smiled in amusement. "Berry, I've been retiring replicants longer than you've been _alive_; I think I can handle myself."

Rachel's face bunched in annoyance. "Oh, that argument is going to get _so _old very quickly."

* * *

They had been ripping and running around town all day and it was only six in the evening. It was a rare day off for Sam, and Quinn almost felt bad for intruding upon it, but she knocked on his apartment door anyway.

Rachel nervously stood beside Quinn for what awaited them on the other side, and Quinn casted her a sideways glance. "He's harmless, and looks like a golden retriever."

Rachel grinned at the description but it quickly melted away when she heard someone toggling with the door handle on the other side. The door opened to produce this Sam person she had been hearing about and he looked at the both of them, then smiled at Quinn, and Rachel's eyes widened at the sight of it. Golden retriever indeed.

Sam stepped forward and wrapped Quinn in a bear hug. "It's good to see you—alive."

Quinn tilted her head in some form of agreement as she hugged him back. "It's good to be seen alive."

They pulled back to find Rachel scrutinizing Sam with narrowed eyes. Quinn nudged her to get her attention and looked over at Sam. "This is Rachel," her voice was grave with meaning as she regarded him.

"O…kay," Sam replied stiltedly as he gazed down at the powerhouse before him. He had never directly interacted with a replicant before and didn't really know how to proceed. "I—do I hug it, or—"

"She," Quinn cut in.

"Hello, Sam," Rachel spoke with an indulgent smile. "Rachel. Very nice to meet you."

Her tone was deceptive, devoid of warmth, and Quinn curiously eyed her for a moment. "Can we come inside?" Quinn asked, still looking at the faux-smile on Rachel's face.

Sam swallowed as he glanced at Rachel. "Uh, sure." He stepped back and held the door as Quinn entered followed by Rachel. His apartment was quaint with barely any decoration because he was determined to be living somewhere better in about a year after he made more money.

Quinn grabbed a couch nearby and Rachel sat directly beside her, mashing their shoulders together and placing a hand on Quinn's knee. Quinn's face was an interesting mix of amusement and embarrassment.

"Can I…get you guys anything?" Sam asked, eyes focusing on their point of contact with a frown.

"Water, please," Quinn asked. Once Sam was out of earshot in the kitchen, she turned to Rachel. "Okay, what are you doing?"

Rachel looked affronted, jaw dropping. "What do you mean?"

Quinn narrowed her eyes, trying to assess whether Rachel was genuinely confused or just pretending. Deciding to drop it, for now, she accepted the offered cup of water once Sam returned and used it to gulp down an amused smile. Then she cleared her throat and placed it on the table. "Look, Sam, I'm sorry I had to cancel on lunch."

Like a puppy hearing a particular noise, Rachel perked up at the mention of lunch and looked between the two of them.

Sam waved it off. "I've just been sleeping all day anyway. Though I would have loved to take you out," he admitted.

Rachel's eyes narrowed as her grip around Quinn's knee tightened.

Quinn nearly rolled her eyes at having her suspicions confirmed. For whatever reason, Rachel was feeling decidedly territorial. Either she had somehow picked up on Sam's feelings for Quinn, or she was just feeling suspicious of meeting someone new who was so close to Quinn. Why Rachel didn't act that way with Puck was beyond Quinn, but it was possible that back then Rachel had yet to develop romantic feelings for her.

"Yeah, rain check," Quinn replied slowly.

Silence enveloped the room, and Sam shifted uncomfortably from the armchair he was sitting on. He clasped his hands together and sat forward in his seat. "So. What have you guys been up to?"

Quinn grabbed Rachel's hand from its death grip on her knee and loosely held it. "I actually have a favor to ask."

Sam's gaze curiously dropped to their point of contact and Rachel smirked. "What favor?"

"I was wondering if Rachel could stay here."

Rachel and Sam's faces fell completely at Quinn's statement. Dark eyebrows furrowed together under Rachel's bangs in a display of her dislike of the idea.

"I'm not too sure about this," Sam spoke up. His lips parted as he mulled over the request. "I mean, I've never even dealt with a replicant before. What if she kills me?"

"Your ignorance is offensive," Rachel croaked out softly with regret of her earlier actions toward Hiram.

"She won't kill you," Quinn spat. "Stop being an idiot."

"I'm not!" he shot back. "All I keep hearing about is how these skin-jobs keep murdering everyone and I don't want one in my home if she's gonna kill me!"

"She won't!"

"How do you know?"

Quinn puffed out a quick breath and gritted her teeth to keep this from turning into a screaming match. "She's never murdered anyone, Sam. Chill out."

"Why do I have to stay here?" Rachel asked sullenly.

"Because you'll be a sitting duck at my apartment while I'm at Schuester's," Quinn told her, remembering how on edge she had felt at the possibility of Rachel not being in her apartment while she was trying to unlock the door earlier today. "I don't want to come home…and you not be there because someone got to you," she admitted after a moment.

Rachel softened at the quiet declaration. "Can't I stay with Noah instead?"

"Sue and Santana know how close Puck and I are, and they know where he lives."

Sam sighed and sat back in his seat in resignation. "How long is she gonna be here?"

"Just for a few days," Quinn replied, though she honestly had no idea. Her plan didn't stretch far beyond hoping the replicants wandered into LeRoy's office to threaten him into extending their lives. Then she could pluck the both of them off with minimal issue. Where things went from there, she was unsure of.

"Will I see you, though?" Rachel asked desperately, and Quinn smiled.

"I'll visit," she assured. "Promise."

"Every day."

She nodded. "Every day."

"And call me to let me know you're safe."

Quinn's expression turned sheepish as she looked away to Sam listening intently to their conversation, then back at Rachel again. "I don't have your number."

She and Rachel quickly exchanged contacts, and to keep the goodbye from being long and drawn up, Quinn abruptly stood up and headed for the door.

"Wait!" Rachel called after her.

As soon as Quinn spun around, Rachel was pressed tightly against her and leaned up to fuse their lips together. Quinn smiled at the drama of it all. Rachel pulled back, grabbing at the lapels of Quinn's coat. "If you get injured I will be very upset with you," Rachel murmured sternly.

Quinn's smile turned roguish. "I'm sure you will." She threw one more wave at Rachel and Sam followed her out of the apartment.

He closed the door behind him and folded his arms across his chest.

"What?" Quinn sighed, already knowing that look.

He shook his head. "You're…so predictable."

"What are you talking about?"

"Falling for someone who's going to die? Really, Quinn? That just screams angst and you jumped in with both feet."

"Is there a point in all of this?"

"My point is, why the hell do you always have to hurt yourself?" Sam hissed. "I'm sitting here, on the precipice of success, but instead you shack up with a replicant that's going to die in two years if someone doesn't kill her in two _days_ first."

Quinn opened her mouth to respond, but came up empty. She never claimed to be perfect. She never claimed to be good at choosing significant others. She looked away from Sam and clucked her tongue in annoyance, folding her arms across her chest.

"Are you happy?" Sam asked.

She hated that question. What was happiness, _absolute_ happiness between imperfect people who could only aspire to create imperfect love? Was happiness waking up beside someone she cared deeply for her every day? Was happiness the fierce, impassioned way Rachel spoke of loving and protecting her? Was happiness what Quinn was currently struggling to hold on to by housing Rachel in Sam's house because the thought of coming home one day to find Rachel retired would make her _un_happy?

"Q," Sam murmured when he took a step closer to find tears brimming in her eyes.

"I just want her to live longer," Quinn whispered hoarsely. "Then I'd be happy."

He gently reached out for her arm and, when she didn't resist, dragged her into a warm hug. "I know that I let my feelings for you get in the way a lot," he sighed heavily. "But more than anything I want you to be happy. I'm trying not to be selfish here."

Selfishness, it was such a human trait, to want without any regard to another's feelings. Quinn bit her lip to stifle a small smile as she remembered how Rachel had apologized for her own selfishness, how very human she kept proving herself to be.

If only she lacked the one trait that above all else made her a replicant, her kill switch.


	12. Chapter 12

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **R

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

* * *

Quinn slammed LeRoy's ID to the corporation down on the receptionist's desk with a loud thwack. Shelby, typing away at her computer, never broke stride as she glanced away to peer over her glasses down at the laminated plastic with dull, unimpressed eyes. Her jaw locked as she turned back to her computer. "May I help you, detective Fabray?"

Quinn didn't bother telling Shelby she had been fired. That little tidbit of information would likely get her kicked out anyway. "I obtained this from LeRoy with his expressed permission to occupy his office for the night."

"Yes, I know," Shelby replied. Then with reluctance, admitted, "He called me."

Pink lips curled smugly. "Good." She felt for the weight of her gun holstered to her hip for easy access instead of resting in her coat pocket just below her breast. "Not that I like you, or anything," Quinn began and Shelby scoffed, "but I feel it necessary to warn you that there's a chance the replicants may show up tonight."

The rapid, monotonous pitter patter of typing stopped. Shelby inhaled a quick breath and looked up at Quinn. "And what makes you think they'd come back?"

Quinn leaned down and braced her hands on the desk. "I'd bet a hundred thousand dollars that eventually they'll come back."

Shelby smirked. "You don't have a hundred thousand dollars," she needled.

"It pays to risk your life to kill something three times your strength," Quinn replied dryly. "Anyway, I'm not here to feed you my account statement. Stay, leave, I don't really care. But you've been warned."

Shelby hesitated, then adopted a bland expression. "I think I'll take my chances."

Quinn's eyes narrowed at her as she snatched up LeRoy's ID. "What a bitch," she muttered to herself and walked away. The entire building was mostly deserted and quiet in the late evening. Half the lights were off in the hallways to create shadows that Quinn eyeballed hard on her way to the elevator. Her phone buzzed in her pocket as the doors shut and she glanced up at the ascending numbers. "Hello?"

"She didn't do it."

Quinn rolled her eyes at Puck on the other line. "I know she didn't. She made sure to strangle the person who did."

He made an excited little noise that made her embarrassed for him, and asked, "Did she really? That's so cool, and hot."

The elevator opened to deposit her on the appropriate floor and Quinn glanced both ways before walking out of it. "It's not _cool_, Puck. She nearly took a man's life."

"Yeah, but whose?"

"Hiram's."

"Oh, shit," he whispered. "That's…gotta make for an awkward family reunion."

She smiled a little in quiet thanks for Puck's uncanny ability to simplify things to their most basic, and sometimes unimportant, points. It often kept her from being overwhelmed. "Tell me about it."

She walked up to LeRoy's office door to find the lock on it to be barcode sensitive. Quinn frowned and looked down at the ID card in her hand, turning it over to reveal an obscure barcode on the back of it. She held it up to the door, then heard an audible click a few seconds later. "This is really state of the art," she muttered to herself.

"So tell me what happened," Puck asked eagerly.

Her fingers searched along the wall closest to her for a light switch and flicked it upward. "You first."

"The other two replicants totally double teamed Schuester."

Quinn winced in sympathy for the painful way Schuester must have died. She had harbored a grudge against him for creating replicants in the first place, but didn't believe he deserved to die from it.

"And that whole mushing eyeballs thing that hotel bellboy was talking about? I watched it happen on tape. Freaky stuff."

Quinn cleared her throat and grabbed the seat behind LeRoy's desk to sit down.

"And Schuester just started _screaming_—"

"I got it," Quinn cut in. "Thanks." She distracted herself from Puck's graphic storytelling by roving her eyes over the mounds of unorganized papers on LeRoy's desk. They were report files on off-Earth replicants whose kill switches had already taken effect. Essentially, they were death certificates, strewn about his desk.

Quinn thought of Rachel and instantly became sick.

She scooted back in the chair and glanced out of the doorway down the long, dimly lit hallway.

"Tell me now." Puck's voice was back to eager and knocked off the eerie chill that had started to slither down Quinn's spine.

"Turns out the other replicants got into the building using Hiram's ID," Quinn informed him. "He gave it to them and pointed a finger at Schuester as a last attempt to save his own life. But he also mentioned LeRoy, which pissed Rachel off. A lot."

"And she just went for him?"

She nodded, though she knew Puck couldn't see. "She lunged clear across the room at him with enough force to knock the couch over he was sitting on."

"This is so wickedly hot," Puck breathed. "Then what?"

Quinn shrugged and swallowed. "Then she just choked him. He could have died." She leaned her head back until she was staring at the tiled ceiling and florescent lights above her. "She felt so guilty, Puck."

"Guilty?" He snorted. "That's…new."

"Tell me about it," was her deadpan reply.

She twisted her chair around to sit parallel to LeRoy's desk and lolled her head to the left to check the doorway. Her fingers toyed with handle of one of the drawers to his desk and curiosity furrowed her brow before she pulled it open.

"What are you gonna do for the rest of the night?"

The desk was full of files, manila envelopes, and Quinn twisted the chair to face them, leaning forward in her seat. "Oh, you know, camp out at Schuester's Corp and hope the replicants show up. The usual."

"Dude, you're here?" Puck asked excitedly. "So am I!"

Quinn reared back and grabbed the phone from where it was resting in the crook of her neck. "Really? Where?"

"At the crime scene. I got a copy of the video of the murder and I've been going over it. You should come up."

She glanced back down at the stack of files in the drawer and one caught her eye. It was labeled. _Anderson,_ _B_, _16940_. "Yeah, in a minute." Curious, Quinn grabbed the file and placed it on the desk, flipping it open. It was Blaine's file. She opened it and flipped through it quickly to confirm that there were no pictures, just as Sue had said weeks ago. Feeling an iota of comfort at the fact that at least the corporation didn't lie about that, Quinn flipped through Blaine's file. There was a 'birth' certificate, followed by files dated every three months charting how he functioned. And lastly, there was 'death' certificate, dated a few days after Quinn had retried him. His kill switch date was listed just below that.

Unease gripped her as she closed the file. She pulled back the remaining files in the drawer to place Blaine's back in when a file labeled, _Berry,_ _R,_ _01562_ caught her attention. Quinn's blood ran cold at the sight of it. The pad of her thumb brushed it as she struggled with her brain to play catch up. Her fingers felt weak as noodles as they closed in around the file and hoisted it up to place on the desk. It was twice as big as the other files, and Quinn opened it to find a picture of Rachel inside. She had on a navy blue sweater with a star directly in the center of it, beaming proudly at the camera with a wide smile. Quinn felt her own lips twitch at the sight of it before she flipped the picture over. It was dated July 26, 2019, just a few months before Quinn met her. She looked over the stack of papers in the file and flipped through them. They were all hand written, not typed up like Blaine's file had been. The first entry was September 2017.

_We're going to do it. I've convinced Hiram to do this with me. We're actually going to create a replicant of our own, for ourselves, our daughter. I can't wait to start this journey with him._

Despite her hang-ups about LeRoy, Quinn smiled what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm for a future Rachel that oozed off of the page at her. Her eyes dropped to the last line of the note and she frowned.

_Rest in peace, dearest Cassie. We will never forget you._

Goose bumps rose along her skin, unease gripping her and an uncomfortable knot forming in her stomach as she wondered just who the hell Cassie was. She flipped the page to find another hand written note written just a few weeks later in early October.

_Now that the plans are finalizing and the replicant we're building together is finally taking shape as an actual person, Hiram has grown reluctant. I must admit he never wanted her to begin with. Nothing can replace our Cassandra, and this isn't my intent. I miss my little girl deeply. I've grown to miss the way she always played her music too loudly until Hiram and I were forced to soundproof her walls. I miss her bright, shining eyes, and nothing will ever replace her in my heart. My only wish is to be a father again, not to replace my daughter. I only hope Hiram can understand. _

She knew something like this was coming, but an audible gasp escaped Quinn anyway. LeRoy and Hiram had a daughter together, a young girl named Cassandra who had apparently died at a very young age. Quinn leaned heavily back in her seat. All of this suddenly explained why Rachel always felt Hiram didn't like her. It was because he truthfully didn't; he had had a child who died and saw Rachel as someone LeRoy was using to replace their daughter with.

But none of this was Rachel's fault and Quinn felt her chest tighten at the thought of how confused Rachel must have been feeling in all of this.

She leafed through the file to another page dated just a week later.

_Today Hiram constructed the replicant's eyes. They're this beautiful, warm brown, hauntingly similar to Cassie's, and my only hope is that the replicant will be able to emote with them as well as our daughter could. Just one look into her eyes sometimes and I found myself willing to allow her to stay out all night with her friends instead of implementing the midnight curfew we had for her. Perhaps if I hadn't been so lenient, she wouldn't have died in that car accident, however._

_I miss my daughter, but I'm finding building this replicant to be a wonderful distraction. I've already constructed her face. She hardly looks like Cassie. I don't think Hiram would have been able to suffer through that. She interestingly enough looks a little like Shelby Corcoran. We all had a good laugh about that._

Quinn swallowed down a lump of emotion that had settled in her throat. LeRoy's daughter had died in a car accident. Quinn herself had survived one. This all felt too surreal, like a story, and Quinn found herself quickly flipping to the next page to learn more.

_I want to try something. It's very experimental and not at all guaranteed to work, but I have to try. The problem with the replicants, the reason they can easily be detected by blade runners and other operatives who have been trained to spot them is because the replicants cannot properly convey emotions. We tried to give them an emote function once and it backfired. Greatly, I'm afraid. But perhaps the reason why they couldn't properly emote was because they had no past experience to draw on. Babies cannot properly emote. They're laughing one moment and crying the next, throwing violent temper tantrums. They cannot properly conduct themselves as humans yet because they have no prior experience to draw on. In essence, they themselves are a novelty._

_But what if I can create a past experience for this replicant, our daughter. Give her memories, recreate Cassie's memories up until her death, and implant them in this replicant, giving her a cushion of sorts, a schematic of how to properly convey emotions, and react to another's emotions._

_This is all mere speculation, of course. But perhaps this will work. Perhaps I can create the perfect human._

This was something she had learned just after she had nearly mistakenly passed Rachel on the EPR test. Rachel had implanted memories, Cassie's ghost floating about her mainframe that in one candid moment she expressed how much she hated.

LeRoy had created something pretty spectacular, Quinn had to admit, but Rachel was still prone to violent tantrums on occasion when her emotions got the better of her.

Quinn sighed and flipped to the next page.

_Today on December 18, 2017, I've created the most profound being, alongside my partner, Hiram. Her name is Rachel Berry. She is unlike all of my past creations—smart, cautious, sensitive, vulnerable, talented, prone to bouts of irrationality. She literally is human. My little creation. My Rachel._

The tone of this note above all else sounded reverent, amazed. Quinn couldn't discern if LeRoy was amazed by Rachel, or by his own ability to create her, however. But he spoke of her in high regard, like a father would his child.

She exhaled a harsh breath and flipped to the next page. Her stomach churned at what she read.

_Hiram's moved out. The house is a lot lonelier without him, but thankfully I have Rachel, though she's the reason he's gone. She has a kill switch, which Hiram and I argued over. He doesn't want to live in this house and grow attached to her only for her to die in four years._

_The more I think about it the more I agree._

Eager to learn more about Rachel's kill switch, Quinn flipped to the next page and read through it quickly.

_Today, December 18, 2018, I decided to remove the kill switch from Rachel. She has exhibited displays of being a functional human being who thirsts for knowledge without allowing what she already knows to fester evil and contempt within her. I may be biased, but she is an exceptional young girl, special. She deserves the life Hiram and I have given her, and above all else, I hope this will get my Hiram back._

_I have no way of knowing how or when Rachel will die. It could be 30, 40, 50 years from now, I have no way of knowing, much like I have no way of knowing when my own death will occur. She truly is human from this point on._

Quinn's hands shook as her heart lurched in her throat, tears springing to her eyes unbidden.

Rachel was going to live.

Without a kill switch she had the chance at a longer life span beyond four years, beyond two more years, beyond anything Quinn had ever expected. A tear splashed onto the notebook paper the notes were written on, smearing the blue lines, crinkling the paper and Quinn quickly wiped it away. Feeling weak and foolish, and just a bit giddy, Quinn gurgled out a quiet laugh and flipped to the next page.

_It's days like this that make me miss Cassie. I know Hiram must blame me, though he says nothing. Had I have been stern enough with her she would have been home safe by midnight, and not cruising around at two in the morning illegally tipsy with her drunk friend behind the wheel. Perhaps then they wouldn't have t-boned that car._

Quinn's heart stopped at the last of that written statement. _T-boned that car_—it had to be coincidental. It _had_ to be. There were hundreds of car wrecks in Lima per year; there was no way—

She hurriedly scooted the chair closer to LeRoy's computer on the edge of his desk and leaned down to press the power button on the system unit. Her breathing grew labored as her heart rate sped up under the anxiety and potential anger she could feel coursing through her veins, making her fingers clumsy as they slid around the keyboard in effort to type in LeRoy's password. She clicked the internet icon and typed in the website she had saved an article of her crash on. After waking up from her coma weeks later, Quinn could hardly find any news that covered her accident. Judy and Russell offered up no newspaper articles and Quinn could only find one online report covering it, the very report she was reading over now.

_McKinley High teenager, Quinn Fabray, was involved in a brutal car crash just off Hopkins road around 1:50 am. The driver of the other vehicle involved in the accident, a sixteen year old male named Timothy Andrews, is believed to have been intoxicated while driving when he ran a red stop sign and t-boned Fabray's car, a red sedan._

Timothy. Quinn remembered that name, that boy as being the underage, drunken boy who crashed into her car that night. She read on with narrowed eyes that grew wide in shock and horror.

_Quinn Fabray was last heard to be in a coma, suffering life threatening injuries and crushed legs. Thus far there has been one confirmed death, sixteen year old Cassandra Berry._

She couldn't breathe; she couldn't do _anything_ but sit there and read that line over and over again. LeRoy's biological daughter died in the same car accident that put Quinn in a coma for weeks. Quinn didn't even remember reading that line four years ago. She must have skimmed it and forgotten it in the time between the accident and recovery, and actually meeting LeRoy over a year later. Everything that had happened after that accident, Quinn obtaining new legs, Rachel's existence, and their seemingly inevitable meeting, was a trickle effect of this one event.

"_What_ are you doing?"

Quinn's wide eyes shot up to LeRoy standing at the threshold of the door. Her legs, the legs he gave her, felt uncharacteristically wobbly as she stood up. This was one bizarre situation she had found herself and she blamed LeRoy.

"You-you're…a liar," Quinn ground out in a choked, disbelieving breath. "Rachel kept telling me she felt like you were keeping secrets from her, lying to her and I didn't believe her—"

"What did she say?" LeRoy demanded as he walked further into the room.

"No, you don't get to ask questions right now!" Quinn stipulated, voice raised and hardened in fear of what she had just learned. She stepped around the desk to minimize the space between them. "For once you're going to answer them."

LeRoy's jaw twitched. "What are you even talking about?"

"You had a daughter," Quinn accused. "Cassandra Berry."

At the mention of the child he had written so much about, LeRoy's face fell into complete apathy, save for his eyebrows drawing inward in agitation. "That's none of your business!"

"It's my business when your daughter's friend is the reason I have these legs!" Quinn shouted. "Cassandra Berry's friend t-boned me, then a week later I'm in surgery for new legs while in a coma, and you expect me to think this is all a _coincidence_?" LeRoy's gaze wilted away, and Quinn stepped closer. "Explain."

LeRoy rubbed at the wrinkles that had set in his forehead and released a weary sigh. "It was a Friday night. She had finished her homework, and all she wanted to do was go to the movies with her friends." His lips twitched. "So she said. She was my baby. I only wanted to make her happy. What would one night hurt?"

The question was rhetorical, laced with heavy regret, and Quinn lowered her eyes away from the haunted look in LeRoy's.

"I let her stay out for a couple of extra hours. She was supposed to be home by two a.m." He swallowed. "I didn't know her friend was drunk. I called her phone at two on the dot and got no answer. A lifetime of worrying later, a nurse from the hospital called to inform me that my daughter had a point-oh-three alcohol level…and that she was dead."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Quinn said quietly. "But what does that have to do with you butting into my life and giving me these legs?"

"My daughter had just died. I was a grieving father filled with guilt and regret, and all I wanted was for all of this to go away. I knew your parents were going to press charges, so I offered a new pair of legs in order to make this whole thing go away quickly and quietly."

"But it didn't go away for you, did it?" Quinn challenged. "Because two years later you created a _replicant_ to replace your _daughter_."

"I've never tried to replace Cassie!" LeRoy growled in offense. "I've loved her fiercely in life and in death. Nothing will _ever_ compare to her, not even Rachel."

Anger flared within Quinn, quick and hot in her veins. "Then why the hell did you create her?"

"Because I wanted to be a father again! I wanted a second chance to get it right!"

"But you know she'll never measure up!" Quinn snarled. "And so does she! Deep down she knows something is wrong; she's known this whole time!"

"I _love_ Cassie!" LeRoy cried emphatically.

Quinn exhaled a coarsened breath. "You mean 'Rachel,'" she corrected. "Or maybe you don't, after all."

Dark brown eyes widened to saucers once LeRoy realized his mistake. "I love her," he croaked out in a rough voice.

"Maybe so," Quinn allowed. "But not the way she needs. She's not a pet, and she's not second best. She-she's a person," Quinn finished with a murmur.

"She's a replicant," LeRoy whispered. "I created her—two years after Cassie died to be the age Cassie would have been. I love Rachel, I do. She's my daughter. But Cassie—I—Rachel's not—"

That statement, as fragmented and disheveled as it was, described how LeRoy felt about Rachel clearly.

"Hiram hates her," Quinn stated, deflecting to another topic in order to draw a picture of what this web of lies really was.

LeRoy nodded his head, lowering it with every nod. His eyes traveled across the floor to arrive at his desk in disarray from where Quinn had been rifling through his files.

"All this time," Quinn ground out. "All this time you've known me you've known _this_ about me, and you've been keeping it a secret."

"I wanted it to go away," LeRoy told her emphatically. "Once you had quit being a blade runner, I thought it would be over, that I'd never see you and have to be reminded of it again," he admitted. "But that day you showed up in the building to test Rachel—" He shook his head. "I was so scared. And I kept-I kept trying to get you to see that she was human—"

"But I knew she wasn't," Quinn cut in, meeting his gaze.

Fear shinned clearly in LeRoy's eyes. "I thought you were going to kill her."

"And that you'd have to suffer the loss of yet another daughter." Quinn straightened and shot him a glare. "Well, good news for you, I'm not going to kill her. But don't you think for one second that that somehow means that I forgive you for all of this."

"_Forgive_ me?" he spat in anger. "I _gave_ you the ability to walk again."

"You buried the story behind what happened that night and saw my face for years afterward and didn't once think to say, 'hey, my daughter's friend was the reason why you were in a coma for three weeks and I'm the reason why you're some cyborg freak now!'" Quinn shouted. "You preyed on my mother's vanity and the fact that she didn't want an invalid for a daughter."

"I'd like you to leave now," LeRoy said coldly. His voice was pinched in irritation and heavy with four years of regret, and Quinn closed her eyes as a swirl of emotions washed over her, choked her vocal chords as she tried her best to discern which emotion she was feeling the most: hurt, anger, betrayal—on Rachel's behalf and her own.

"You are a sick man," she spat. "And I hope you pay for every lie you've told that's hurt someone, including Rachel." She didn't utter another word as she walked out of LeRoy's office, not even throwing a warning over her shoulder for the replicants that may or may not show up tonight. Her legs felt restless and she took the stairs two at a time until she was on the ground floor. She jammed her hand into her pocket for her phone and walked through the parking deck toward her car.

"Go for Puck."

Quinn glanced around her, then jiggled her car door open. "Meet me at your house."

* * *

She took the long way to his house in an attempt to sort her thoughts out, and to ensure that he would be home, ready to hand her a beer when she got there. She drew her already tightly balled fist out of her pocket and knocked rapidly on Puck's door.

She could hear his feet hit the floor from where he must have jumped over the arm of the couch, and the door opened a moment later. He stretched his arm out to hand her a beer. "You look like hell."

Quinn grabbed it and walked past him. "Thanks." She swiped up the remote from the couch Puck had been resting on and turned the TV off.

"Oh, come on, I was watching that."

Quinn shot him a dirty look and he held his hands up.

"Or we could…talk," he offered. "I know that's what you girls like." The couched dipped under his weight, and he slid an arm along the back of the couch with a sigh. "What's going on in Q's world?"

And there were a million thoughts running through her mind, but a single one was screaming at her for attention. "She's not gonna die," Quinn murmured.

Puck scratched at his five o'clock shadow. "What are you talking about?"

"Rachel. She's not gonna die."

"Last I checked the girl had a hit put on her by Sue and Santana and a kill switch in her head."

Quinn turned to look at him then, eyes shining brighter than he had ever seen. "That's just it. She doesn't have a kill switch."

His interest piqued at her vague babbling. "Okay, tell me _exactly_ what's going on in that head of yours."

"I went through LeRoy's files. He must have pulled the files of the replicants that came to Earth because Blaine's file was in his drawer—along with a death certificate."

"These things aren't _alive_, Q," Puck felt the need to point out for Quinn's sanity.

She waved him off. "Right after Blaine's file was Rachel's. It's this huge folder dated as early back as a few months before he even created her." She swallowed down a lump in her throat and met Puck's gaze heavily. "LeRoy and Hiram had a daughter who died in the same car accident that put me in a coma."

Puck's eyes narrowed at the mention of Quinn's accident. "No way." His lips balled up with past anger he had felt over the situation, and he shifted along the couch to scoot closer. "I thought a guy hit you, though."

"Timothy," Quinn agreed. "Yeah, and LeRoy's daughter, Cassie, was in the passenger's seat."

"And she died," he whispered.

"Then LeRoy paid my parents off in the form of giving me new legs so I wouldn't be paralyzed in an attempt to keep the whole incident quiet."

"But wait." He frowned in confusion. "How does Rachel fit into all of this?"

Quinn sucked her teeth in contempt. "Two years after their daughter died LeRoy convinced Hiram that they could create another daughter to give them a chance to raise a child together again and to assuage LeRoy's own guilt about letting his daughter stay out past curfew the night she died." She glanced over at Puck to gauge his reaction. He looked like he was going to be sick, and Quinn reasoned that was the only way to respond to all of this. "Except Hiram didn't really want Rachel and felt LeRoy was trying to replace their daughter with her, but went along with it anyway to make LeRoy happy."

Puck whistled out an overwhelmed breath. "This is—"

"I don't even think there's an adequate word to describe this," Quinn admitted with a disgusted shake of her head. She circled her fingers around the neck of the bottle of beer in her hand and drew a long sip.

"But you said Rachel didn't have a kill switch," Puck prompted after a moment. "How?"

Quinn licked her lips free of residual beer. "LeRoy took it out. Hiram had left him because he already didn't want Rachel and didn't want to risk actually growing attached to her if she was just going to die in four years. So LeRoy took out the kill switch hoping Hiram would come back if he did."

"So when's she gonna die?"

Her lips curved into a thin smile. "No one knows." That was the beauty of it.

"And Rachel doesn't know about any of this?" Puck asked.

"She…suspects LeRoy of keeping something from her," Quinn answered. "I'm sure covering up something this huge is difficult and there's bound to have been slip ups on his end from time to time that's made her suspicious. And with me thrown into the mix—it would explain why he had been trying so hard to keep Rachel away from me. He didn't want me finding out and telling her."

"Are you going to?"

She hesitated, then shrugged, sinking back into the couch. Now that everything had been revealed the sudden wash of emotions that had overtaken her earlier left her tired now. "She already has to deal with memories that aren't her own; I don't want to add to that with…this. But she always expects me to be honest with her because I'm the only person who ever has been," she finished with a murmur. "I'll probably just tell her about the kill switch."

Her mind was still wrapping around the fact that Rachel was going to live. Her kill switch was something that had been churning around Quinn's mind for the past several weeks, and with one thorough search through Rachel's file in LeRoy's office that one worry at the top of her list had been obliterated once and for all. It left her feeling relieved, and dare Quinn think it—happy.

She bit her lip. "I can't let them kill her, Puck."

He did a double take and beer whipped from the corner of his mouth. "What are you talking about? She's a sitting duck, Q, and the best thing you can do is get your groove on a little until it happens."

Quinn's neck was stiff as she shook her head, lips balling up in agitation. "I'm not going to let them kill her," she reiterated through gritted teeth in an effort to get him to understand this wasn't something he could sway her decision on.

"Then what are you gonna do?" he cajoled with a voice laced with amusement.

She took a swig of her beer to pointedly delay answering his question as punishment for his mocking tone. "We'll move. Rachel and I."

"Okay, Quinn, stop. Are you even listening to yourself right now?" he asked. Her voice had grown airy and wistful, distant, and Puck struggled to keep up with her. "You're going to just be on the run for the rest of your life? For what? I mean, I know she's hot, smokin' even, but robotic pussy is not the reason to skip countries for the rest of your life."

Quinn turned to look at him with eyes glistening with unshed tears and all of Puck's protests died in the back of his throat as realization dawned on him.

Quinn was in love.

She was in a state of being where rationality needed no longer apply. And it was so new to him, so foreign that he didn't recognize it for what it was at first. Quinn had always been the most rational, logical person he knew. She was able to make decisions without allowing her emotions to get in the way, and had made for an awesome video game partner back in middle school when his anger over losing would cause him to lunge for the reset button and Quinn would pull him back and remind him that resetting the game would cause them to lose _all_ of their progress, not just that one moment of defeat. To see the level headed woman he had known since they were children sit on his couch and make such a grand decision based solely on her emotions threw him for a loop.

Quinn's gaze dropped to the bottle being strangled by her thighs clenching around it. She heard it crack and she sighed to relax her grip around it before she ended up with a lap full of shattered glass.

"Okay."

The single word utterance caught her off guard, and she turned to find Puck staring at her. "What?"

"Okay," he repeated, then nodded as if to reassure himself that he was okay with this. "Sam's gonna be so pissed at you."

She huffed out a laugh of disbelief that he was actually supporting her in this then smiled at him. "He's probably going to hate me forever," she drawled with an eye roll.

"Where is he anyway?"

She smiled even wider. "Babysitting Rachel."

Puck laughed raucously at their friend's expense. "Can life get any better for that guy?"

"Doubt it."

"Why's she over there anyway?"

The question was sobering, bringing Quinn back down to Earth just when she was tugging at the strings of relief and true happiness. "Because someone left a note on my door," she sighed.

Puck's eyes narrowed threateningly. "A note?"

She nodded. "I believe I have a stalker." Her eyes cut to Puck's window in paranoia, before she took a sip of beer. "And I think he's a replicant."

"Mike?"

"Or Sebastian."

Puck stood from the couch and walked to the exact same window Quinn had been eying. He pulled the curtains back and peered outside into the wintry night to find no one there. "Do you want to spend the night?"

"No, I'm going home," Quinn told him evenly. "I'm not going to let some cowardly skin-job who can't face me like a man scare me out of my own home."

* * *

Her hallway was empty, quiet, her door bare, and Quinn pushed her key into the keyhole and looked over her shoulder as she twisted it to unlock the door. Hand falling to her gun on instinct, she turned the doorknob and pulled out her gun before opening the door. She stood there, gazing into her pitch black apartment with her gun pointed. When nothing moved or made a sound, she stepped further inside and flicked on the lamp on the table beside her couch. Light chased away the dark and Quinn found her living room empty as she stepped inside. She kicked the door closed and stepped back against it, swapping the gun to her right hand to reach behind her with her left and lock the door.

A soft sigh rose within her chest and blew past her lips. She pushed off the door and continued into the house with her gun stiffly pointed forward. She flicked the light on in the kitchen to find it empty, and continued down the narrow hallway to her bathroom. The shower curtain was drawn back to reveal a clean, white, empty, bathtub and Quinn continued onward to her room. It was pitch black and her fingers fumbled along the wall to light the darkness. Once she did, she was greeted to a bed that was made hours ago, and no sound but a ticking clock on the wall. She opened the closet and stuck her gun inside, but there was nothing and no one there.

"Fucking coward," Quinn gritted out, willing her parasympathetic nervous system to kick in. She didn't understand what the replicants wanted with her, but knew if they wanted her dead she would be long gone by now. Just as she was placing her gun back in its holster, rapid knocking on her door caused her heart to lurch in her throat.

Quinn took quick strides to stand in front of the doorway of her room, glancing all the way down her narrow hallway and into her living room where the door to her apartment escaped her vision by mere inches, hidden behind the wall beside her kitchen door. She pulled her gun back out and clenched her teeth in anxiety as the knocking became more pronounced. Her steps were slow, one foot in front of the other as she walked through the hallway. The closer she got the more a faint voice muffled by the door became pronounced.

"Quinn? Quinn, are you home? I called Noah and he said you opted to stay here tonight instead of his apartment, which is unspeakably unsafe. But if you're here I'll be here with you—Quinn!"

It was Rachel's voice, and she sounded frantic and all over the place. Quinn's gun dropped to her side as she quickly stepped to the door. One look through the peephole showed Rachel standing directly in front of her door, wringing her hands together. Quinn twisted the lock and grabbed the doorknob to jerk the door open.

Rachel's dark eyes were wide and happy as they settled on Quinn and she poured into the apartment with buzzing energy as she always had, flinging herself into Quinn's arms and planting a wet kiss on her lips.

Quinn closed the door behind Rachel and pushed her against it. She tossed her gun behind her on the couch before locking the door and grabbing handfuls of Rachel's waist.

"I couldn't stay away," Rachel breathed against her mouth before biting on Quinn's lower lip and tugging.

Quinn hummed and chuckled softly. "It hasn't even been a day," she lightly scolded. She wrapped her arms around Rachel's waist and just squeezed her closer while Rachel placed frantic kisses all along her face.

"Sam is so annoying," Rachel complained. She grabbed Quinn's face and placed a delicate kiss on her closed eye, then dragged her lips over to kiss the other one.

"That's a very mean thing to say about my friend," Quinn mumbled. "Not inaccurate, but mean."

Rachel smiled. Her hands snaked around Quinn's neck and squeezed the lightest bit to keep from causing discomfort. "I've missed you," she sighed hotly before tugging Quinn closer to brush their lips together.

Quinn swallowed back a moan as her hands snaked under Rachel's sweater. Her mind churned with endless possibilities that had presented themselves now that she knew Rachel was going to live. She couldn't allow Santana and Sue to get to her, and would do anything to ensure they didn't.

This all seemed like it had been a long time coming since the moment Quinn and LeRoy's deceased daughter had entered each other's lives unknowingly. Every chance action since then had been building up to this.

Quinn palmed Rachel's bare breasts fully and Rachel bared her throat as her head tipped back against the door. With a thick swallow, Quinn tugged the sweater upward and over Rachel's head. Long dark hair tumbled in sheets over Rachel's shoulders and down her back. There was nothing shy about the way she looked up at Quinn with confidence in the straight line of her shoulders and longing shining in her darkening eyes.

What made it innocent, what made Quinn pause in the frenzied way her body was choosing to react was the warmth in Rachel's eyes, the unadulterated love that was palpable in the thick air around them.

Rachel stepped forward once Quinn gave pause and tucked her fingers under the hem of Quinn's blouse. Her fingers ghosted over soft pale skin and Quinn shivered at the feel of Rachel's fingers playing just above the waistband of her jeans. She watched Rachel's face redden in arousal before black eyes met hers. "I want all of you," Rachel breathed thickly, lifting Quinn's shirt. "Please."

Quinn raised her arms wordlessly as Rachel pulled her shirt over her head, exposing pale flesh to hungry black eyes for the first time. A soft sound clung to Rachel's throat as she mapped Quinn's torso with her eyes. Her hands deftly unhooked the button on her jeans before pulling down the zipper and Quinn pushed Rachel back against the door and kissed her soundly.

She was going to do this. She was really going to go through with this with the knowledge that what she was sharing with Rachel no longer came with an immediate expiration date. Quinn swayed closer to fuse their lips together and pulled back to pant against Rachel's mouth, "You aren't going to die."

Rachel's expression was bemused as she followed Quinn with her eyes when Quinn fully pulled back to gauge her reaction. "What do you mean?"

Quinn cupped her face. "Your kill switch," she murmured lowly. "LeRoy removed it months ago." She didn't bother to elaborate any more than that because this moment between her and Rachel didn't deserve to be dragged through the mud with LeRoy's secrets and lies from four years ago.

"Quinn…" Rachel whispered softly. Her lips trembled as she struggled to say more and her eyes welled with tears. She reached up to cup the hands resting on her face with shaky fingers. Quinn leaned closer and kissed her desperately, then tugged Rachel to her bedroom.

* * *

She felt Rachel's nose trail up the back of her neck before burying into her hair with a deep inhale. Quinn smiled. She always woke up to Rachel doing the most interesting things. "Hi there."

Rachel grinned shyly against her neck as if reading Quinn's thoughts. "Did I wake you?"

Quinn stretched out on her stomach before flopping back down and burying her face into her pillow. "I don't even remember dozing off," she admitted in surprise. She had been sure there was no way she would be able to sleep tonight with a replicant stalking her, and here she was, waking up with one glued to her naked back.

"Ten minutes ago," Rachel supplied, shifting closer. "Your breathing was deep and rhythmic, very soothing." She slid her leg along Quinn's thigh before throwing it over the curve of her ass to scoot closer.

Quinn had never known anyone to touch her so intimately as if there was no way to be close enough, like Rachel wanted nothing more than to crawl inside of her and live forever. That was certainly how it felt just shy of an hour ago when Rachel's eager fingers mapped every inch of her body. There seemed to be nothing Rachel wasn't willing to explore in her quest to own Quinn's body just as she did her heart.

Nimble fingers traced down the curve of her spine as Rachel pressed hot, open mouth kisses to the back of her neck. Rachel had learned through experimentation that Quinn's skin purpled beneath her lips when she sucked and bit her; it made her giddy to see evidence of all the places her mouth had been when seconds, minutes later dark bruises would appear.

The pit of Quinn's stomach grew warm as she felt the lower half of Rachel's body press closer, her pelvis softly thrusting into Quinn's hip.

Quinn smirked at the familiar feel of Rachel's hips undulating into her. She had a little monster on her hands. She turned her head to rest the side of her face against the pillow and groaned unexpectedly when Rachel bit her neck. "Rachel."

"Again," Rachel begged, pushing against Quinn's hip with more purpose.

The gentle stirring of arousal in the pit of her stomach urged her to do just what Rachel was pleading for, and Quinn closed her eyes, willing her mind to stay focused. "In a bit," she breathed. Her stomach coiled in a tight knot at the feel of Rachel, slick and warm against her hip. The very first time she had felt it, her eyes rolled back. She didn't know what she had been expecting but when she first reached down between Rachel's legs to find warm, wet heat, her breath had whooshed out of her in surprise, much like it did now. "We need to talk first."

The warm, panted breaths on the back of her neck ceased as Rachel stopped moving all together. Quinn turned over under her to find Rachel staring down at her in concern. How she could flip the switch between her emotions was still a little strange, but Quinn had learn to adjust.

"Is something the matter?" Rachel asked.

Quinn reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind Rachel's ear, then brushed her thumb along her jaw. "Would you still like to move?"

Rachel lit up at the question. "You and I would be the ones moving, correct?" When Quinn nodded, Rachel bit her lip and smiled. "I would very much like to move away with you." She looked deeply into shining hazel eyes and bent down to press a kiss to the middle of Quinn's chest and pulled back with a grin. "I'm one hundred percent in love with you, Quinn. You're stuck with me."

"How very certain you are," Quinn teased. She stretched out underneath Rachel lying fully on top of her with her chin resting just below Quinn's diaphragm. "I'm stuck with you, huh?"

Rachel nodded and Quinn's stomach fluttered with the ticklish feeling of her chin digging into her. "Mhm."

"I don't think that's very fair to me," Quinn drawled.

Rachel's nose crinkled in mock offense at her statement as she huffed.

"I don't know if I can be with someone so short for the rest of my life," she continued.

"I'm not _that_ short," Rachel protested with a pout.

"Uh-huh," Quinn countered, voice sluggish with sleep. She yawned. "And very strong. I may start to feel inadequate."

Rachel giggled and leaned up to bury her face directly on a hickey she had placed on Quinn's neck.

Quinn splayed her hands along Rachel's back to feel the warmth of her skin. "You think everything is funny," she mused.

"I think _you're_ funny," Rachel corrected.

"Hmm, you'd be the first."

"Surely not." Rachel felt the strong pulse of vitality in Quinn's neck thump against her temple and extended her hearing to listen to the comforting steady beat of her heart. "I'm glad you're okay," she whispered. "What on Earth possessed you to come back here when you know someone is or was watching you?"

"I can't stop living my life just because there are replicants here. I never have and I never will," Quinn answered.

Rachel listened closely to the conviction in her words. "When are we moving?" It was the safest option they had left, for the both of them.

Quinn sighed. "After this is all over. After I can be sure whoever put that note on my door is dead then we can go."

Rachel rose on her hands to crawl above Quinn. Her hair fell down and brushed across Quinn cheek as she leaned down to press a kiss against her forehead. "Let's go get them then, shall we?"

* * *

**A/N**: Surprise? ;)


	13. Chapter 13

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

* * *

"I am beginning to think you like seeing me naked."

Quinn quirked an eyebrow at the sound of Rachel's voice edging into the kitchen. "Why would you say that?" she asked, pressing the power button on her coffee pot. She braced her hands on the edge of the counter for some semblance of self-control as her mind churned over the fact that there was a good chance Rachel was naked right now.

And Rachel was, standing on the tiled kitchen floor. "You neglected to leave me a towel again."

"Shit." Quinn swiveled around in fear of her spotless floors that she had just waxed clean a couple of days ago once again being soaked by Rachel. Then she narrowed her eyes at the playful smile on Rachel's face. She was completely dry. "You could have gotten one yourself."

"I'm afraid I had to." Rachel glided across the floor to walk closer. She walked on the tips of her toes when barefoot, which Quinn found amusing and kind of cute and a bunch of other adjectives she never thought she would associate with a replicant.

Rachel reached out eager hands as soon as she was in touching distance and molded them around Quinn to twine around her waist. She beamed a happy smile. "Good morning."

"Hi," Quinn murmured, leaning back against the counter as Rachel pressed up against her. "You seem to have a distinct _lack_ of affinity for clothing."

Pink lips quivered in threat of a giggle as Rachel's eyes twinkled up at Quinn. "It is not a _lack_ of affinity, but a mere preference for a more…natural state."

"And what if your natural state is distracting?"

"Even better."

"You're not as innocent as I thought you were, are you?"

Rachel grinned. "Educational documentaries are very educational."

Quinn slid her hand down the smooth plain of Rachel's back. She admired how soft Rachel was, human to the ignorant eyes and hands. She was modeled perfectly, every 'bone' perfectly in place from sharp shoulder blades under satiny skin to her spinal cord running down her back. "I thought I told you to stop watching those."

"Hmm, did you?"

Rachel was apparently playful when not faced with life or death situations, and Quinn marveled at the different sides of her personality presenting themselves. Her hands roamed freely along Rachel's body, curving to the shape of her backside and giving a gentle squeeze as if to assure herself that this was real, tangible, and wasn't going anywhere…hopefully.

Rachel sighed at the feeling of Quinn's hands on her and shuffled closer.

"Do you want breakfast?" Quinn mumbled against Rachel's lips leaving insistent kisses against her own.

At the mention of food, Rachel pulled away and made a beeline for the refrigerator. "I quite like Lucky Charms." She hopped up to grab the box and Quinn watched, bemused as Rachel found her away around the kitchen with familiarity. The morning Quinn had left her home to visit the precinct, Rachel must have acquainted herself with the apartment.

Quinn spun around to grab a mug from the cabinet and poured herself a cup of coffee. "Well, you knock yourself out. I'll be in the living room."

She settled onto the couch and turned on the T.V. across the room. The news was already on, and Quinn listened intently for any information regarding the whereabouts of the replicants. They weren't even mentioned, not even a blurb, and instead of assuaging Quinn's worry, it only ratcheted it up more. Knowing where they were was a lot better than having no Earthly idea.

The soft padding of footsteps caught her attention and Quinn rubbed her lips together as she watched Rachel saunter into the living room with a bowl of cereal. She had yet to put on a stitch of clothing but Quinn couldn't find it in herself to complain as Rachel plopped down on the couch next to her with naked flesh and warm skin.

"I rather like T.V.," Rachel murmured conversationally after she swallowed a spoonful of cereal. "May we watch cartoons? I find them to be much more stimulating than situational comedies, and much more uplifting than the news."

Quinn casted a glance to the uninformative news anchor and reached for her remote, muttering, "Sure," as she changed the channel.

Rachel's lips curled into a grin, eyes riveted as they settled on the television. "Ah—I know this show!" she exclaimed. "SpongeBob SquarePants is such an engaging character. You remind me of Squidward."

Quinn cut her a sharp look. "In what universe is that a compliment?"

Rachel smiled sheepishly as she settled back into the couch and nudged Quinn's thigh with her toe. "I'm merely stating that you have a very serious disposition about you and don't like for your world to be disturbed."

They were sitting on the couch, Quinn's back stiff against the back of the sofa while Rachel sat with her legs folded beneath her, hair pulled atop her head in a messy bun with a bowl of cereal in her hand.

"Speaking of disturbances in my world," Quinn drawled, tilting her head toward Rachel who grinned broadly at her with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Rachel gestured to the television with her spoon and a drop of milk fell into Quinn's sofa where it embedded itself, like a little brunette Quinn knew of. "Yes, but even Squidward allowed SpongeBob into his home every once in a while."

Despite Rachel's playful attitude, Quinn was feeling anything but with the lack of news of the replicants whereabouts weighing heavily in her mind. Things had passed serious and life threatening days ago, _weeks_ ago when Quinn had agreed to handle the case. She and Rachel were on the precipice of moving away together if they could dodge Sue and Santana while retiring the remaining two replicants, one of whom left the note on Quinn's door.

Either of them or both of them could die, yet Rachel was sitting on her couch watching early morning cartoons while eating a bowl of cereal seemingly without a care in the world instead of drowning in her own thoughts like Quinn was.

Rachel placed the empty bowl on the table and rubbed her hands together, eying the cup in Quinn's hand. She sniffed then asked, "Is that coffee?"

Quinn absentmindedly handed her the cup and Rachel received it with two eager hands and drew the cup toward her lips.

"Careful, it's scalding!" Quinn warned, then deflated when Rachel's perplexed expression greeted her. "But…of course not too hot for you," she backtracked, amusement alighting in her eyes.

"Not many things are too hot for me," Rachel informed her before taking another luxurious sip. "Or too cold."

Fascination crept along Quinn's face as she just stared at Rachel for a moment. How they had come such a long way, Quinn would never know, though the emotional traumas that they had both suffered through during this case had probably solidified a strong bond between them based on the fact that at times, they had no option but to trust each other. All Quinn knew now was that…losing Rachel would be a great loss, one that she didn't want to risk.

"Is there something on my face?" Rachel asked after a stretch of silence as Quinn kept staring at her.

Quinn shook her head and looked away. "How can you be so nonchalant about all of this?"

"All of what?"

She frowned at the dodgy way Rachel was responding to her when she was trying to have a serious conversation. "Don't be obtuse."

Rachel sighed.

"We could die," Quinn continued.

"You will not die," Rachel answered pointedly. "I wouldn't ever let anyone kill you. But I could—"

"_You_ aren't going to die," Quinn cut in. "I just learned you don't have a kill switch; I'm not about to just _let_ them kill you."

Her voice became strangled and broken toward the end of her statement, and Rachel sat the cup of coffee down on the table to rise up on her knees and crawl closer to Quinn. She wrapped her arms around Quinn's neck and nuzzled her warm face against a stern profile. "It's okay to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid," Quinn replied gruffly, jaw tightening in disgust at the word. "I'm just…cautious."

"Okay,"' Rachel murmured. She stroked Quinn's hair soothingly and kissed her cheek. "Just know that we're almost done."

"And then we can move." Quinn almost smiled.

Rachel did smile. "And then we can move."

"Where would you like to go?"

"Jamaica has always appeared especially lovely to me."

"It is a beautiful place."

Rachel pulled back to cup Quinn's face and turn her head so that they were facing each other. "You've been before?"

"My family and I used to go on vacations when I was younger. Back when my father still had money," she replied, a little bitterly.

Rachel detected the acid in her tone and frowned. "If there are bad memories for you in Jamaica then—"

Quinn waved it off. "No, there aren't any bad memories there. If you'd like, we can move there." A kiss was pressed against her cheek and a smile hid there for a moment before Rachel pulled back. She grabbed Quinn's arm to hug against herself, but paused, eyes sparkling in amusement at the sight of a purple bruise on the inside of her forearm.

"I think you got a little carried away there," Quinn intoned dryly.

Rachel gazed at the hickey on Quinn's arm with a fond smile and a mischievous glint deep in her eyes. "Nonsense," she scoffed. "It's a sign of affection." She pressed a kiss against it and Quinn shivered before Rachel hugged her arm closer and rested her head against her shoulder.

They watched T.V. in companionable silence that was only broken when Quinn's phone rang. She dug into the pocket of her sleep shorts to find Puck's number glaring up at her.

"It's Puck," Quinn answered when Rachel looked up at her questioningly. Her finger swiped over the answer call prompt and she pressed the phone against her ear. "Any news?"

Puck's voice was uncharacteristically solemn when he spoke. "Dr. Berry was killed last night."

Rachel wrenched away from where she was resting against Quinn's side to perch along the couch. Her eyes blazed with unmasked anger; she was never good at hiding her emotions, especially when they gripped her as strongly as this.

If Quinn didn't know any better, she would have thought Rachel's anger was being placed on her with the way Rachel glowered at the phone in her hand. Her body was pulled taut as she went completely still, the only movement being the bob of her throat with a tight swallow.

Quinn watched her with narrowed, critical eyes. Her voice was strained with anxiety when she asked, "Where are the replicants?"

"Apparently Shelby shut the whole building down from the inside," Puck answered. "It's completely sealed off so no one, not even the replicants, can get out—a security system put in after their failed attempt to give the older versions emotions, to ensure that if the replicants ever went crazy during production in the building that it could be shut down from the inside and they wouldn't get out to the public."

"Shelby is still there," Rachel mumbled to herself. Quinn went to say something, but Rachel stood from the couch, mumbling to herself as she walked through the apartment and into Quinn's room.

Quinn sighed and leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee and her head in her hands. "What are they going to do down at the precinct?"

"Sue, Santana, and I are on the way now. But I could use my partner," he added, and Quinn almost smiled. It would have been sweet if he wasn't basically inviting her to a possible early grave.

Still, this was partially her fight, because one or both of those replicants were stalking her and there was no way she could move on with Rachel when they were on the loose.

She heard uncharacteristically loud footsteps and looked up to find Rachel stomping through the apartment, fully dressed in a short skirt and a sweater, long socks and a pair of flats.

Quinn straightened. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going down to the corporation," Rachel muttered gravely. "I'm going to kill them."

Quinn ignored Puck's questions in her ear and dropped the phone to rush over to the door that Rachel was opening. Quinn leaned heavily against it until it closed.

"Quinn. Move." Rachel blinked. "Please." Her voice shook and her entire body vibrated with tension, anger that was just ready to release itself on the appropriate target.

Quinn leaned more heavily against the door despite every flag flying up in her mind that reminded her that Rachel was stronger and occasionally unstable. "You need to calm down and think about what you're doing for a second," Quinn said slowly. She rolled her shoulders back to at least appear domineering, like an unmovable fortress, when really, her heart was palpitating with unease and she was sure Rachel could hear it.

Rachel jerked her head away from Quinn. Her hands clenched though her brooding shoulders dropped almost submissively. "They killed my father." Her voice was trapped between an angry growl and a mournful cry.

"And I'm sorry about that," Quinn murmured, her stance unwavering in front of the door. "But I don't want them to kill _you_." Hazel eyes rounded and softened as she placed a heavy hand on Rachel's shoulder. "Just—let me get dressed. Okay? Then I'll go there with you."

Alarm gripped Rachel as she looked up at Quinn with glistening eyes, mouth agape. "I don't want you there," she stipulated. "You could die."

Quinn offered a smile that lacked mirth as she told her, "We both knew a day like this was coming, Rachel."

"Yes, but—" Rachel bit her bottom lip, sadness dropping her normally upturned features. "I just—I love you, Quinn," she responded as if that explained everything.

With a quick nod of her head, Quinn wrapped her arms tightly around Rachel's neck and pulled her closer. She buried her nose into Rachel's hair as her eyes began to sting and sighed as she smelled her own shampoo.

Rachel held onto her just as fiercely, gripping the back of Quinn's nightshirt and nuzzling the underside of her jaw.

She inhaled deeply as if to trap Quinn's scent into her olfactory forever.

* * *

Quinn and Rachel ran up to the parking deck and toward the elevator to find Puck resting back against it with his arms folded, Santana by his side. She took one look at Rachel and reached for her gun.

Rachel took a step back as Quinn drew her gun even quicker and aimed it at Santana.

Santana's eyes widened in betrayal as her lips curled back to bare her teeth in anger. "You wouldn't!"

Quinn's face hardened to stone. "Try me."

Puck stood from the elevator. "Come on, guys. We've got two nutcase replicants inside to deal with. Save the beef for another day."

Quinn's gun never wavered. "Tell that to Santana."

"I'm here to retire two skin-jobs and you mean to tell me I'm gonna walk in with one?" Santana asked. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "No fucking way."

"Then stay out here; we don't need you," Quinn growled.

Rachel shifted from foot to foot nervously before taking a step forward in the thickening tension between the four of them that she was the cause of. Her voice was soft when she spoke. "Santana, I've only come here to help."

Santana's eyes hardened. "We don't need your help."

"I do," Quinn argued.

Puck cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I do, too," he admitted. "Look, two replicants stronger than us are in there somewhere and only five of us are here to stop them."

Quinn did a quick head count of the four of them and frowned. Math was never Puck's strong suit. "Five?"

"Sue's inside," he explained.

She stepped closer to them, ignoring Santana's defensive stance. "Alone? Not even that heartless bitch deserves to die. We have to go in there."

"Elevator's not working. Shelby shut the whole building down from the inside once the replicants broke in to keep them from getting out."

Quinn nearly smiled at the description of Shelby's bravery. "That crazy woman," she muttered to herself. She then looked up between Puck and Santana to ask, "How are we supposed to get in then?"

Puck motioned for them all to follow him as he walked away from the elevator. Quinn jerked her head to Rachel to indicate that she should come closer, and casted a withering glance to Santana as they continued.

"There's an underground entrance," Puck explained. There was a grate on the ground in one of the handicap parking spaces, and—Quinn looked around them—it was actually the _only_ handicap parking space in the parking deck. Typically wheelchair bound individuals weren't hired to work in the corporation because of the dangers that lay behind an unstable replicant deciding to attack. It was already difficult enough for an able bodied individual to handle them, and Schuester didn't want to risk the lives of anyone with a handicap. The lone handicap parking space in the entire lot was more of a marking to indicate which grate was the secret entrance inside the building.

Puck slid his fingers into the individual gaps in the grate and grabbed hold of two iron bars. He grunted and gave a swift tug, but the grate didn't move. Embarrassed at being shown up by a grate in front of three women, he lowered his head and tried once again, to no avail.

Rachel stepped forward. "Perhaps I can be of assistance," she chirped with a happy grin on her face to finally be of service. Quinn tilted her head in amusement as Rachel saddled up beside Puck.

Puck grunted his dislike of the idea, but stepped aside, and Rachel parted her feet shoulder-width apart before bending forward and sliding her fingers into the same gaps in the grate Puck had. She gripped the iron bars and tugged in one fluid motion and the grate popped up in her firm grip from being wedged in concrete. She grinned proudly.

Quinn's lips quivered in threat of a smile.

"Beginner's luck," Puck scoffed, though he was impressed.

Santana stewed in disdain behind them all. She growled and muscled forward. "Sorry to break up this Kumbaya moment, but some of us actually came here to retire replicants." She sneered at Rachel before hopping into the grate, grabbing the ladder inside and climbing her way down into the darkness below. "I'll see you losers on the other side if you haven't turned coat already."

"I do not like her in the slightest," Rachel decided with a frown.

"She's right about one thing: we've gotta haul ass," Quinn told them. "Now." She walked over to the hole in the ground and peered inside, dread crawling up her spine. "Who knows what's even down there?"

"According to Shelby, it should just be a dark tunnel that'll take us to a set of stairs that'll take us throughout the building," Puck supplied.

Quinn pushed out a quick breath and climbed down into the hole. "All right, let's do this then."

Rachel followed hot on her trails and looked over to Puck with a scrutinizing frown. "Noah, how will your shoulders fit—"

"I got it, I got it." Puck waved her off.

She smiled in amusement, then a moment later her head was gone as she climbed down into the hole.

It was completely dark inside save for a few dim lights every eight or so feet to light their way. Quinn waited until she heard a second pair of feet hit the ground before she asked, "Puck, do you have a flashlight on you?" She couldn't see Santana anywhere and figured she must have been long gone.

"Uh, yeah, hold up." He jogged up to where Quinn was and fished out a flashlight from his black cargo pants. He flicked it on and led the way. "See? This isn't so bad."

"It's freezing cold down here, Puck," Quinn deadpanned rubbing at the goose bumps on her arms. But she had to admit an alternate route into the building was a brilliant idea, and props to Shelby for risking her own life by closing off the remaining two replicants in the building to keep them from harming anyone else.

They reached an opening along the wall, and Puck shined his flashlight in it to find the staircase Shelby had been talking about. All three of them took to the steps two at a time in silence. They arrived at a heavy door and Puck twisted the door knob and threw his shoulder into it to open it.

It opened to show the first floor of the building and their eyes widened at the sight of it. "Holy shit," Puck breathed. "Everything's so _trashed_."

The once pristine building was littered with folders and papers that were scattered haphazardly across this floor. Most of the lights above head were out and the ones that were actually working flickered with threat to dim forever. It looked like a troop of monkeys had come through and ransacked the place.

Rachel squeezed past the two of them to better see inside. A tiny sound of mourning squeaked from her throat as she looked at the ruins she had spent most of her existence in.

"Shelby?" she called loudly. "Shelby, are you still alive?"

"In here." Rachel took off into a full sprint, and Quinn cautiously followed her with her gun extended, Puck not far behind. Rachel skidded to a stop by the receptionist desk and leapt over the counter before kneeling to find Shelby curled up under the desk.

Rachel smiled. "You are safe," she whispered. Then her smile dimmed as she muttered, "Perhaps the only one."

Shelby shakily echoed Rachel's smile and reached out to clasp her hand. "I knew if any of them were going to be good, it was going to be you."

Quinn listened intently to the quiet conversation and the fondness that lay behind it. She was mid-step in approaching the pair when a blood-curdling scream let out. Quinn's entire body seized and Puck spun around to where the sound was coming from. "This way," he growled, and took off before Quinn could even say anything.

Quinn casted a contemplative glance to Rachel and hesitated, caught between keeping Rachel safe, and ending this once and for all. She swiveled around a second later to follow behind Puck.

She knew who it was before she even approached, and her gut twisted with unease. A short mop of blonde hair could be seen from around Puck's body kneeling before the woman crumbled on the floor. Her eyes stung more and more with each step she took until she was standing just behind Puck.

Lying there dead on the floor was Sue Sylvester.

She was wearing a blue track suit and a bullet proof vest above it, but that didn't stop her head from being bashed into the floor if the blood coagulating on the floor around her head like a halo was any indication. Santana had one of Sue's hands clasped tightly in hers as she blubbered over her body. Quinn could do little more than stare at the once proud woman she had known since she joined the blade runner academy now laying slain in a small pool of her own blood.

"Quinn!"

She looked up at the sound of her name, her eyes sharp as talons in response to the unfamiliar voice calling her. Her stance widened in response to it, shoulders rolling back.

"Quinn Fabray!"

A surprised breath whooshed out of her. It was one of the replicants, most probably the one who left the note on her door. He let out a dark chuckle that caused goose bumps to break out along her skin.

The sound of fast moving footsteps caught her attention and Quinn swiveled around with her gun pointed.

Rachel skidded to a stop and lifted her hands up.

"Shoot her!" Santana cried in a weak, agonized voice from where she was leant over Sue. "Fucking shoot her!"

Rachel inhaled a deep breath. "I was in the middle of ensuring Shelby made it out safely when I heard someone calling for you," she explained slowly. "And I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

Quinn's hand shook as she lowered her gun. Her eyes were weighted with guilt as they slipped away from Rachel's. "Sorry for…pointing that at you."

"It's okay." Rachel's voice was airy, barely there as her senses carried her far beyond this moment as she listened for any signs of the two remaining replicants being close by.

"For fuck's sake, I'll shoot her!" Santana stood swiftly and grabbed her gun.

Quinn swiveled around until she was in front of Rachel and aimed her gun directly at Santana. She had been doing this longer, was a better shot, and they both knew it. "You need to calm. The hell. _Down_," Quinn gritted out, enunciating every syllable through clenched teeth. "I get that being here puts you on edge, but you act as if you've had absolutely no training for this type of situation."

"My _training_ has taught me that when I see a replicant, I shoot!"

Puck stood abruptly and pointed a finger in Santana's direction. "You need to calm down and focus on the task at hand before you get us all killed!"

Rachel's gaze immediately dropped to the tiled floors where she heard a faint scuff against the floor. The lights flickered and from the shadows she saw a white tennis shoe. Her eyes widened. "Everyone, look out!" She dived for Quinn and wrapped her arms around her waist. A surprised breath wheezed from Quinn as she felt herself tumble backwards onto the floor.

Quinn heard a sharp cry and winced as her shoulder blades hit the floor. Searing pain shot across her back, and a high pitched grunt sounded from her throat.

Her vision swam from vertigo, but she looked up to find dark concerned eyes boring intently into her own. "Are you okay?"

Quinn swallowed and looked over to where Santana was struggling with a replicant of her own. "We have to save her."

"You are my only priority," Rachel informed her urgently without a hint of apology. "Are _you_ okay?"

"I'm fine," Quinn whispered breathlessly in surprise at the thought of being _anyone's_ priority. "I'm fine. Let's save her now."

Reluctantly, Rachel rose from off of Quinn and helped her up. They found Puck aiming his gun at the replicant that was using Santana as a shield.

"He must be Mike Chang," Quinn muttered to herself. The replicant, tall and slender, had Santana in a firm chokehold, walking backward into the shadows where the lights of the building failed to shine anymore.

Rachel walked closer without a hint of hesitation as Puck kept his gun pointed at Mike, looking for an opening.

"Quinn."

Her name was whispered this time, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end at how close the remaining replicant, Sebastian, sounded. Quinn turned to look down the hallway to find a man peeping around the corner at her.

It was him. She just knew it.

She casted a glance back to Rachel advancing on Mike, then looked back around to find the replicant gone. Uneasy, Quinn held her gun stiff at her side and gave chase down the hallway. She rounded the corner to find Sebastian down the hallway running up the stairs and Quinn full on sprinted after him. She bypassed the receptionist desk and grabbed the railing to the stairs to hoist herself up. They winded up the different floors and Quinn kept running until she reached an open door. "You make this too easy," she mumbled to herself, a victorious smile clinging to her lips as she stepped out onto the roof of the building. She turned around in a complete circle in search of the replicant. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" she goaded.

She felt a hand land heavily on her shoulder, and adrenaline spiked through her as she swiftly turned around to point her gun. Sebastian grabbed the barrel before she could even process what was happening, and tugged Quinn closer. "We won't be needing this man-made monstrosity, now will we?" he asked rhetorically before roughly yanking it from Quinn's grip. "Such war wagers these things are."

He threw it behind him without looking and it sailed clean off the roof. Quinn's eyes widened in fear as he gripped the lapels of her coat and hoisted her up off her feet. He then swiveled around and walked Quinn closer to the middle of the roof. They stared at each other for a moment, Quinn's eyes tightening in irritation, then suddenly she felt her skull crack as Sebastian's forehead collided with her own.

She grunted and cried out against the pain as he dropped her and she crumbled to the ground. She felt warm liquid trickle down her forehead and nose then tasted blood on her lips. When her eyes opened, her sight was black around the edges and she scrambled to back up as Sebastian advanced on her.

He grinned sadistically at the sight of fear shining in her eyes. His stance relaxed, hip cocking out as he regarded Quinn as if she were a science experiment and not like he was about to take her life. He squatted down before her. "You're dating a replicant," he prompted in the silence between them. "What would your parents think?"

Quinn's eyes widened at his statement. Blood gathered in her mouth and she spat it out at him. It landed with a splatter against his face, and his eyes lowered to assess the red stain on his cheek. "You left that note on my door," she growled.

Sebastian grinned. "How nice to officially meet you."

"You can go to hell!" Quinn spat. She pulled her leg back as far as she dared and kicked Sebastian square in the gut.

He landed on his back and skidded back several feet. Quinn looked to where he was trying to regain his bearings on the ground. She twisted in an attempt to roll over and stand up but dizziness gripped her and darkened her vision until she fell back against the unforgiving concrete once more.

She heard Sebastian grunt as he stood up. His eyes narrowed from several feet away. "I'm afraid I may not be allowed there," he responded as if the little interlude that landed him on his back hadn't just happened. "Hell."

There was a splitting headache across forehead that made her breath hitch in agony as she attempted to scoot further back, gain some form of leverage as he once again advanced on her or she was surely going to die.

Sebastian grabbed her leg and tugged roughly to pull her back to him. Quinn gritted her teeth against the pain of being dragged against the concrete. His grip on her leg tightened to the point of crushing bone, if Quinn's lower half had been composed of it. Instead her eyebrow dared to arch smugly as pain failed to register. Sebastian's gaze snapped to hers. "Would you look at that," he murmured to himself. "You're one of us."

"I'm _nothing_ like you," Quinn growled with pinched eyes. "You heartless freak."

His lips curled downward into a deep scowl. "I wish you hadn't said that." Quinn's gaze suddenly swam with Sebastian's dark, soulless eyes glowering at her. "How does it feel to live in fear, Quinn?" he hissed menacingly against her face. "To know that at any moment your life can be ended?"

Quinn tipped her head back from his haunting eyes to stare up at the night sky. She felt two droplets of rain splash against her cheek and briefly pondered what a poetic death this was turning out to be. "All a part of being human, I would say. No one knows when they're going to die."

"You're going to die today," Sebastian told her without hesitation. "And everyone else in this damn building," he growled. "I planted a bomb on the bottom floor set to detonate soon. No one will ever even _think_ to create temporary life forms once I'm through with all of you."

Quinn turned her head to spit out more blood that had seeped into her mouth. It had cooled in the cold, wintry air, and was beginning to coagulate on her forehead. She tipped her head back and allowed the drizzle raining down on her to wash away what it could. "Your little vendetta is against LeRoy," she wheezed. "Not me, and not anyone else."

"Oh, I've already taken care of him," Sebastian replied darkly. "He wouldn't extend my life, and as you can see from the ruins I left the corporation in, I was unsuccessful in my attempt to discover how to do it myself."

"I see." She looked down to find Sebastian's hand clenched against his stomach in an awkward position. Her lips curled upward. His body was beginning to fail him. "I see," she repeated, quieter. The acid was already beginning to corrode him. "How much more time do you have?"

Sebastian looked away. "Not long. LeRoy refused to reverse my kill switch."

Quinn hummed. "No one's here but you and me, you know," she lied, hoping beyond hope that Rachel, Puck, Shelby, hell even Santana, had gotten out by now. "I made sure my partner got everyone out safely. Pity, I'm the only one your master plan is going to work on."

"Indeed," Sebastian muttered darkly. His lips curled in distaste. "Time to die, Ms. Fabray."

Her mind was slipping in what Quinn guessed was a mild concussion, but the rain drops pelting her face kept her ever present. "I've been preparing for twenty-one years."

She felt the heavy weight of Sebastian straddling her, and swallowed down her fear as this all became real. His face was pensive as he regarded Quinn. "Tell me something."

"What?" she spat rebelliously, refusing to go out like a coward with her tail tucked between her legs.

"Do you love Rachel?"

Quinn's breath hitched at the unexpected question. Never in a million years had Quinn thought she would be answering a question such as this while a replicant wrapped its hands around her neck. The word, "_Yes_," wheezed from her throat before Sebastian gripped her windpipe, and darkness began to swirl around the edges of her vision.

* * *

**A/N:** One more chapter left, stay tuned for the (shocking?) conclusion!


	14. Chapter 14

**Title: **The Heart is a Machine

**Pairing: **Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry

**Rating: **PG-13

**Disclaimer: **I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.

**Summary: **AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.

**A/N: **A big, big thank you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing this fic. I hope you enjoy the ending!

* * *

Even in the face of death, Quinn couldn't help but claw at Sebastian's arms in hopes that she could find purchase. Her attempts were fruitless, manicured nails digging into synthetic skin that failed to even register pain to Sebastian as his eyes shinned in merciless pleasure back down at her. She gasped a strangled breath, once, and didn't breathe again for several seconds.

"You do?" Sebastian asked calmly as if his hands weren't wrapped around her neck, willing the life out of her body. He was referencing his earlier question about her feelings for Rachel, but with rapid oxygen depletion to her brain, Quinn could barely keep up. "Interesting, don't you think?"

Quinn couldn't find it in herself to care about the hypocrisy he found in her feelings for Rachel. Her legs twitched awkwardly below her as the taste of blood continued to coat her tongue. Her vision darkened even more and all she wanted at this point was something else to look at while she died instead of the scowl marring Sebastian's face.

The next thing she heard was the screeching, chilling sound of metal smacking harshly against metal. It sounded like a car crash and for a moment Quinn was lost, thrown back to the night when Timothy crashed into her, the moment that started it all, and she briefly she wondered if she could see Cassandra in her mind's eye.

She sputtered in surprise when something resembling _air_, sweet beautiful air chased down her lungs as fast as she could inhale uneven breaths followed by coughing up the blood that had probably seeped in her esophagus by now. She whimpered in confusion and fear as she looked around her to what little she could see through her darkened tunnel vision. She heard the faint scuffing of shoes, low grunting from exertion and angled her head upward and to her left to find Rachel wrestling Sebastian to the ground.

Quinn gulped in another breath and attempted to turn over onto her stomach. She belly flopped to look across the roof. Sebastian's face was buried into the concrete at an odd angle with Rachel straddling his back. She had one of his arms twisted behind his back and was holding the other down to the concrete.

Sebastian let out a frustrated huff and turned his head to eye Rachel over his shoulder. "You'd kill your own brother?" He asked gruffly. "For a _human_?"

Rachel twisted his other hand behind his back and held on to the both of them with one hand. She laid her free hand on the concrete as she regarded Sebastian impassively. "I would do anything for her. Furthermore, you killed my father, so surely you should have seen this coming."

He barked out a dark, humorless chuckle. "A replicant with a heart," he scoffed in wonderment. "And they said we didn't exist."

Rachel had to smile at that.

"This wasn't personal, you know," he continued when she didn't respond. "I just...wanted to live, like any red-blooded human would."

She felt Sebastian twitch awkwardly under her and frowned, concern softening her eyes as her grip on him eased as if she was hurting him. "You don't have much longer, do you?"

He smiled lopsidedly without mirth. His eyes shifted focus from her to a shallow puddle that had settled into a groove in the concrete several feet away. It wiggled every few seconds with a new raindrop. With a sigh, Sebastian closed his eyes and Quinn's heart seized. "Time to die, Rachel."

Rachel's breath hitched at his statement and not but a second later did Sebastian grow limp below her. Quinn watched from several feet away as Rachel leaned closer to press a kiss into his hair. "Rest peacefully, Sebastian," she murmured. Her hand curled into a fist against the concrete and she drew her arm back and jammed her fist into Sebastian's skull.

Quinn gritted her teeth and clenched her eyes shut against the screeching sound that resounded in the night sky and rattled around in her already muddled head. When she opened her eyes again, Rachel was standing and Sebastian's head was bashed in. He looked much like the wooden table in Quinn's kitchen.

Rachel scrutinized Quinn as she approached, and offered an explanation when faced with confusion and mild fear. "Just to be sure that he's really gone."

Just as Quinn was ready to attempt to push up on a knee, she felt a hand wrap around her bicep and another snake around her waist before she was hoisted up like a rag doll. Rachel circled Quinn, assessing her injuries while ripping off a piece of her sweater without thought. Her lips were balled up, her brow resting heavily above her hardened eyes that roamed all over Quinn's face and the damage that had been done to it.

Quinn swayed where she stood in front of Rachel. Her throat felt raw from where Sebastian had squeezed it like a damp dish rag. Her vision was starting to return to normal, but any jerky movement would send her into disorientation again.

Rachel frowned once more at the damage done to Quinn's face before she bent down to drag the fabric in her hand through a puddle of fresh rain water. She squeezed it of excess water then gently pressed it to Quinn's face, wiping away caked blood. She inhaled a deep breath before admitting, "There is a bomb in the building. I've seen it and I can hear it."

Quinn clutched at Rachel's waist when she felt herself tipping forward, and Rachel stepped closer, sturdy as stone, as Quinn fell into her. She placed a kiss to a spot by Quinn's ear that wasn't caked with blood, and mumbled, "We have to leave, Quinn. Right now, okay? I informed Noah and Santana about the bomb after we retired Mike, so they're gone. But I wasn't going to leave without you."

Quinn pulled away at the urgency in Rachel's soft voice, and Rachel caught a pallid, thin wrist in her grip and pulled Quinn back. Dull and weary hazel eyes stared back at her listlessly. Rachel's eyes were lively enough for the both of them as they widened in concern. "Quinn, I think you're concussed." Her grip on Quinn's wrist tightened and she gave a light tug to keep from jostling her more than necessary. "We _really_ have to get out of here." She pulled Quinn through door and wrapped an arm around her waist as she led them down the stairs. "We have less than twenty minutes to make it out of here, Quinn. Do you hear me?"

For the first time in minutes Quinn spoke. It was a rough bark of, "Yes," that immediately sent her into a splitting headache.

Her feet were agile as ever as she glided down the steps with minimal issue. It was her upper half that she needed to wake up. Rachel's sure grip around her waist never slackened in its persistence as they winded through the flights of stairs that Quinn had taken up in her foolishly heroic pursuit of Sebastian. It felt like the steps had tripled in number on the way down and Quinn leaned heavily against Rachel in her exhaustion.

"We're almost there," Rachel managed to whisper against her ear while guiding them both down the stairs. She was the picture of calm right now to Quinn's surprise and she sluggishly voiced as much.

"I need you alive," Rachel explained gruffly. "And I can't—as much as I _want_ to panic and cry and fret over your injuries right now—" Her eyes began to glisten and she buried her lips into her mouth and shook her head.

Quinn just nodded.

They hit even ground in what felt like it took the entire twenty minutes and that the building was going to explode any second now, but Rachel stood quietly for a moment, then informed her that they had precisely fourteen minutes.

And then Rachel started walking—opposite of the exit, and Quinn stood from the wall that she had found herself leaning against to follow her. She assumed her vision had returned to normal, but the building was so dimly lit that she had no idea.

"Where are you _going_?" Quinn asked, winced and clutched her forehead only to wince again. It seemed silence was the only thing that was going to sooth her aching head.

She began to hear faint crying as they encroached upon a room with light shining from the inside. It only took Quinn a few seconds to realize this was LeRoy's office. She walked in behind Rachel to find Hiram leaning over LeRoy's body, rocking back and forth while feeble sobs wracked his body.

Rachel wrung her hands together as her eyes raked up her father's body. Her movements were careful and confined as if one wrong move would shatter the entire office as she slowly knelt down beside Hiram and placed a hand on LeRoy's leg.

"Hiram, I-I'm so sorry," she whispered in a thick, wet voice with tears coating her every word. She couldn't meet his eyes after nearly taking his life days ago and settled for staring at her father's lifeless body. She puffed out a pained breath and wiped at her eyes, squeezing LeRoy's leg. "But there is a bomb in here and we all need to leave right now." She placed a hand on Hiram's shoulder to gather his attention and he flinched away violently.

His eyes blazed darkly and Quinn stood a little straighter in defense. "I'm not leaving," he gritted out through thick tears dancing down his face. "_Leave_—you leave me here with him. It's the least you can do."

Rachel leaned forward and finally dragged her eyes up to meet his. "There is no reason why you should both have to die."

"_Leave_!" Hiram shouted, shoving Rachel away. She barely budged, but received the message loud and clear. She clutched a hand to her chest where he had just shoved her and clasped her fingers surprisingly around a white envelope. She looked at it then back at Hiram. "I have lost _everything_ because of you," he accused with thrashing limbs. "My daughter, my husband—"

"I haven't done _anything!_" Rachel argued with a rough growl to her voice.

Quinn walked over to the two of them and placed a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "Come on." Her voice was firm and brooked no argument, because she was not about to allow the both of them to explode with this building.

Rachel stood up and looked at Quinn pleadingly. "We can save him."

"He doesn't want to be saved," Quinn told her. "The best we can offer him right now is privacy in his last few moments."

Rachel looked wholly unconvinced but didn't put up a fight when Quinn grabbed her hand and tugged her along. With the very real possibility of not making it out of the building on time weighing heavily on her mind, Quinn found her unsteadiness slipping away to make room for anxiety as she sped up her pace. Rachel kept up effortlessly.

"Okay, which way?" Quinn asked once they were in the dark tunnel once more. Rachel tugged on the hand clasped in hers as she took a sharp right. "And how much time do we have left?"

"Six minutes," she admitted, biting her lip.

"Are you nervous?" Quinn couldn't help but ask as they began running.

Rachel hesitated for a moment then murmured, "Yes."

They ran faster toward a dim light shining from above and Rachel urged Quinn up the ladder first. Quinn bit her lip to stifle the argument on her tongue and simply hiked quickly up the ladder, Rachel's hands hot on her feet as she followed closely behind. They hopped onto the parking deck and stood quickly to walk toward Quinn's car when a giant black SUV pulled out in front of them.

Quinn skidded to a stop in alarm as tinted windows greeted her. The window rolled down just as she was about to start backing up and running in another direction, and a relieved breath whooshed out of her at the sight of Puck in the driver's seat. "Get in."

Quinn and Rachel scrambled into the back seat. "Where's Santana?" Quinn asked with narrowed eyes as she fumbled to put her seat belt on. She had made it past Sebastian and out of the building; there was no way in _hell_ she was about to die via car accident of all things.

Puck's jaw clenched. "Long gone."

"Figures."

"Three minutes and ten seconds," Rachel worriedly called from over Puck's shoulder. She had an impeccable internal clock.

He jammed his foot onto the accelerator in threat to drive it through the floor of the car and the screech of rubber grinding harshly against pavement sounded as Puck sped out of the parking lot. He ran through the security lever and sped out onto the street, closing in on seventy as he drove straight ahead.

Rachel watched the building grow smaller and smaller as they drove away until it was nothing but a tiny dot, exploding; the envelope Hiram had jabbed into her chest was held tightly in her grasp the entire time.

* * *

"No!"

"Quinn, you have to—"

"Rachel, please."

"Every hour, Quinn."

"Every three hours!"

Rachel sighed and grabbed the lamp on the bedside table. She pulled the shade off of it and the entire room became engulfed in a florescent glow. Sam had insisted Quinn could have his bed for the night after Quinn threw a fit and demanded to be released from the hospital. She had a mild concussion like Rachel feared, but the doctor informed her that the first twenty-four hours were the worst and that Quinn would make a quick recovery soon after. Rachel was instructed to wake Quinn every three hours during the night to ensure that she hadn't slipped into a coma and was coherent, but—Rachel pursed her lips. "I just want to be thorough." Her lips were stiff in her conviction to take care of Quinn as she saw fit no matter how cranky Quinn was whenever she woke her up.

Quinn turned over onto her back and threw her arm over her eyes to block out the light. "I just want you to let me sleep," she whined through downturned lips.

Rachel's lips quivered in threat of a sympathetic smile. She stood from the chair she had been sitting on for over four hours to sit down on the bed beside Quinn. Her hand darted out to cup Quinn's cheek—red with indignity—because she honestly couldn't help herself. "Honey, I know you're tired," she murmured warmly.

The soft press of Rachel's warm palm against her cheek made Quinn sigh. "I nearly died; I'm more than tired." Her legs moved restlessly underneath the blankets bunched at her waist and the white night shirt she wore rose with every jerky, agitated movement. She felt worlds better now that she had slept—as much as one _could_ sleep while mildly concussed with Rachel Berry as their nurse. More than anything now she was just bone tired and wanted to sleep for a few hours, or days.

"I know, but—"

"Just let me _sleep_!" Quinn bellowed in a painful wail.

The door in the corner of the room creaked and Rachel swiftly turned to the intruder to find Puck poking his head inside, rubbing at his eyes. "I see you woke sleeping beauty," he yawned unhappily. "Again." They had all converged at Sam's house for the night and agreed separately that they were all going to spend the night together, unconsciously, in search of companionship after the hellish several hours that they now preferred to put behind them.

"Every hour," Rachel informed him.

"Every three hours!" Quinn argued.

"What's the commotion in here?" another groggy, roughened voice asked. It was Sam, nothing but a frown and a mop of blonde hair over Puck's shoulder. "Is she in pain?"

"No." Rachel frowned. Her hand flitted to land lightly on the side of Quinn's neck she checked for a fever. "But she's being very disagreeable."

Quinn grumbled an expletive, but sighed when Rachel leaned down to press her lips to her temple. "You can go back to sleep," Rachel whispered in her ear. "Clearly you're still in your right mind."

Quinn was gone almost instantly, but fumbled for Rachel's hand as unconsciousness swept through her.

* * *

"Quinn."

"Rachel, _fuck_. Cut it out."

"Every hour, Quinn."

"No."

Rachel frowned deeply. "You're very cantankerous when you don't get enough sleep."

Quinn cracked an eye open to glower at Rachel who was standing from her seat to lean closer. "Then let me—"

She didn't get to finish her sour statement because Rachel swooped in and demanded Quinn's lips. Incensed, Quinn moved to pull away, but Rachel only followed her until she was pushing a knee onto the bed in order to keep up. Quinn's breath hitched as a warm hand cupped the side of her neck with tender care. Her lips twitched in threat of a smile at the lengths Rachel went to in order to distract her from her agitation at being woken up. She dragged her hands through Rachel's hair and tangled her fingers into the wisps at the nape of her neck.

Rachel leaned closer when faced with Quinn's compliance. She climbed fully onto the bed and settled down on her stomach beside Quinn. With a few more pecks against her lips, Rachel pulled back with a twinkle in her eyes. "Feel better now?"

Quinn hummed, a throaty purr buzzing in her chest. She felt…content—_happy_, and so very alive despite the threat of a concussion and a gash in her forehead that she desperately hoped wouldn't scar. Her eyes bounced all along Rachel's face, estimating the circumference of her eyes, tracing the line of her draw, running up her sharp cheekbones. Her thumb rubbed along the back of Rachel's neck as the sound of the blood rushing through her head grew louder with nervousness. "I love you," she finally admitted in a whisper-soft voice.

Rachel's eyes glittered like dark gold, melting into softness and a fond quality that shined through at Quinn. She reached out with uncharacteristically shaky fingers to tuck a blonde lock of hair behind Quinn's ear and cup the side of her face. "I love you," she sighed heavily as if the weight of the affection she felt for Quinn pressed down on her vocal cords. She smiled and traced its echo on Quinn's lips. "I think you've earned another two hours of uninterrupted sleep."

"_Thank _you."

* * *

Quinn clutched at the side of her head and stared blankly at the T.V. She had been re-bandaged courtesy of Rachel who had researched how to properly dress a head wound because she wouldn't let Sam touch Quinn more than necessary. The painful throbbing had subsided, and Quinn's vision was back to normal. Occasionally she was struck with bouts of dizziness and lightheadedness if she moved too quickly, but she was sure that would all subside soon. For now she was less concerned with her head and more concerned with the news, specifically the three different news channels she was flipping back and forth between that were all covering the explosion of the Schuester Corporation that had occurred just forty-eight hours ago.

News anchors were calling it the doing of a replicant gone mad, the explosion. There were a few deaths from passersby who had no idea that the building was seconds away from exploding; several charred, too burnt to be identified, bodies were found inside, but Quinn knew who they were: Sue, LeRoy, Hiram, Mike, and probably Sebastian.

They were all gone, needlessly really, and Quinn couldn't help but think back to the car accident once again and wonder how differently everyone's lives would have been had Cassandra survived.

"Quinn, you're going to go insane if you keep watching the news," Rachel told her as she walked into the living room. She had two cups of coffee in her hands and handed one to Quinn. "Careful, its scalding." A hint of a teasing smile played over Rachel's lips, and as selfish as a thought it may have been, Quinn was thankful that things turned out the way they did even though several people had died in the years-long aftermath since that one moment.

Quinn stared at the news anchorwoman talking to her as she took a luxurious sip of her coffee. "They've all been retired," she muttered.

Rachel pursed her lips, hesitated, then took a sip of her coffee. "I'll miss them," was all she said.

Quinn sighed at the dip in Rachel's voice, the only indication that she disliked the fact that this was how it ended for her fellow replicants. She rarely spoke on the matter, but it was clear that she had been fond of them, her own kind.

Deciding to change the subject, Quinn grabbed the remote and turned off the television then turned toward Rachel. She placed the coffee mug on Sam's glass table and rubbed her hands together. "Ready to move to Jamaica?"

Rachel grinned giddily, and bit her lip. "I am."

"Whoa, wait, what the hell is this?" They both looked up to find Puck in the archway of the living room. "Jamaica? You're still moving?"

"We still have to hide, Puck," Quinn pointed out.

"From who?" he challenged. "Everyone who knew that Rachel was a replicant died in that explosion. Her file's definitely burnt to ashes by now."

The revelation nearly knocked the wind out of Quinn as she sunk back into the couch. She had never thought of that. Rachel's brow furrowed as she, too, thought over his statement, and Quinn leaned forward to offer up an argument. "But Santana—"

"Quit. She turned in her badge and gun this morning when I went to turn my own in, chucked the deuces to me, and told me this town's gotten weird as hell and that she was moving to Cali with her girl because Brittany scored a touring gig." Puck crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the archway. "So—stay here."

"I hate this town, Puck," Quinn told him with a shake of her head. "I'm sorry, but—"

"Then move to another city, hell another state. Just don't go so far away." He sighed and dropped his arms to smack exaggeratedly against his thighs as his shoulders drooped.

"He's going to miss you," Sam supplied as he stepped into the living room and the conversation. He scratched at the beard threatening to sprout out of his chin. "We both will."

Quinn ducked her head to hide the curling of her lips. "Come on, guys. Don't get all sentimental."

"Then take a hint," Puck told her with narrowed eyes. "Just be in the _country_ for goodness sakes."

"You're the one who said you'd go the Bahamas."

"That's like, a pipe dream," he scoffed. "Something you just say because it's a cool idea." He cleared his throat and belatedly muttered, "…But there's no way I could leave you guys."

Quinn looked from the hopeful expression on Sam's face to the much more subdued, macho version on Puck's face, though the tension in his frame told Quinn all she needed to know.

She dragged her eyes to Rachel with a shrug. "What do you want to do?"

"I just want to be with you," Rachel admitted. She cut her eyes to Sam so quickly Quinn almost didn't catch it, and looked at Quinn again. "To me, it does not matter where we go, only that we're together."

* * *

_Six months later, New York City_…

She had kept two packed suitcases under the bed in their new penthouse just in case there was at least one person from Lima, Ohio who would come forward and confess to the fact that Rachel was still alive, and a replicant. Her fear was almost irrational considering, as Puck had told her, there wasn't a living enemy left who would want Rachel dead except Santana who seemed to just want to do what they were all doing, putting the whole case behind them and moving on. Plus, Rachel's file was burned to crisp, ashes that had been swept away by city workers as they attempted to clean the rubble that was once a proud standing building foisted upon the small town of Lima.

When it got to be six months later with no one coming forward about Rachel's existence, Quinn was starting to sleep a little better at night.

Rachel had long ago read the letter in the white envelope Hiram had thrown at her just before the explosion. She had kept it firmly in her grasp for a full two months before she finally gathered up the courage to read it. It was a four page front and back hand written confession from LeRoy. He explained everything to her that Quinn hadn't the heart to. It had all left Rachel feeling "moderately numb, as if someone has arrested my feelings and left me with…nothing," as she had described before she just fell into Quinn's arms and cried out her anger, frustration, and overwhelming sadness.

With every secret out in the open and without the immediate threat of the death of either one of them, Quinn and Rachel were able to begin anew. Quinn had saved thousands of dollars when she moved several hours away from Lima instead of across the world somewhere. She had enrolled into college full time and finally took up those acting classes she had been dying to.

Rachel had tried her hand at odd jobs to see what she liked. In six months she had gone from being a waitress, to a secretary at a low end business, to musical entertainment at a bar where she quickly learned that she absolutely _adored_ singing, or more specifically, the way people reacted to her singing. Since then she had enrolled with Quinn in college strictly because of the show choir that Quinn promised was amazing.

Quinn would sometimes think back to that case, like right now, and wonder just how the hell she slept at night. But the soft, warm press of Rachel's body beside her every night often coaxed away her darker thoughts and lulled her to sleep. Rachel had no qualms about outwardly claiming how much she needed Quinn, but Quinn's need for her was just as fierce, quiet, tucked away in her mind along with the ever present knowledge that Rachel wasn't going anywhere, thankfully.

She felt slim arms wrap around her from behind and a chin rest on her left shoulder. Quinn's grip on the banister of the balcony tightened. It was a crisp morning that was beginning to warm over with the baking sun overhead, too promising of a day for Quinn to wither in these thoughts and she knew Rachel was coming to whisk her away to do who knew what. Rachel thrived in New York like Quinn had never seen her. Every day was an adventure for her and she eagerly took it on.

But this was just Quinn's thinking spot often, where she came to when her thoughts were heavy and her eyes keen…just in case.

Through the thin cloth of her dress, Quinn could feel the evidence of Rachel's nudity press into her shoulder blades. There were some things about Rachel that would never change no matter what her journey to integrating into human society led to, and Quinn was thankful, because Rachel's idiosyncrasies were what made her. A kiss was pressed to the base of her neck that made her shiver as Rachel buried her face there. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Her voice was light and carefree, clashing with Quinn's dark and heavy thoughts, and Quinn slowly turned in Rachel's arms with a quiet smile, knowing who the victor would be.

It all still felt like yesterday sometimes, but Rachel's presence anchored Quinn in the present and kept her pushing toward their future.

Rachel bit her lip, but it did nothing to stifle her smile as she tugged Quinn back into their apartment. "Today is our ice skating date," Rachel purred. "Did you forget?"

Quinn's hands found slim hips that wiggled in threat to slip right through her fingers, and Quinn just clung tighter. She was never letting Rachel go, and knew more than anything that Rachel never intended to let go of her either. "I didn't forget." Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "But clearly you did because you aren't dressed."

Dark eyes twinkled at the challenge that lay behind Quinn's words before Rachel scampered off into their bedroom in search of clothes. Quinn watched her go with a sigh. She casted one more glance to the balcony before following behind Rachel with a growing grin.

There would soon be a day where she would stop looking over her shoulder.

But for now, Quinn was just happy there was no one there when she did.


End file.
